PA ^So .2 1

HISTORICAL SKETCHES

OF

O'CONNELL AND HIS FRIENDS;

INCLUDING

RT. REV. DRS. DOYLE AND MILNER THOMAS MOORE JOHN

LAWLESS THOMAS FURLONG RICHARD LALOR SHIEL

THOJLA.S STEELE COUNSELLOR ERIC THOMAS ADDIS

EMMET WILLIAM COBBETT SIR MICHAEL

o'lOGHLEN, ETC., ETC.,

WITH

A GLANCE AT THE PUTURE DESTINY OF IRELAND.

BY THOMAS D. McGEE.

" I LOVK agitation, when there is cause for it ; the alarm-bell which startles

the inhabitants of a city, saves them from being burned in their beds." — Burkk.

FOURTH EDITION.

BOSTON:

PATRICK DONAHOE,

23 Franklin Street.

1854.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845,

BY DONAHOE AND ROHAN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusett*.

L^SS^'"^

l^U

Stereotyped by

GEORGE A. CURTIS;

NSW ENGLAND TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY.

a&^i]&a<&A:ea<©'»»

TO THE CITIZENS OF THESE UNITED STATES,

ESPECIALLY TO THOSE OF IRISH DESCENT,

WHOSE HONESTY, MORALITY, AND INDEPENDENCE, CONFER

HONOR ON THEIR NATIVE-LAND,

AND DIGNITY AND BENEFITS ON THEIR ADOPTED COUNTRY;

AS CONTAINING SOME FACTS WHICH THEY SHOULD KNOW, AND

EXAMPLES WHICH THEY MAY IMITATE

WITH PROFIT TO SOCIETY,

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,

B7 THE iLUTHOR.

INTRODUCTORY.

The name of my immortal subject has been familiar to the
civilized world for nearly forty years. The free of the earth
venerate it — the tyrants and task-masters of men hate its
utterance, so ominous of the annihilation of their unhal-
lowed caste. Were those who have been benefited by the
labors of his life, to assemble in congress, at the call of
gTatitude, an assembly would be formed without a parallel
in all past history. The Asiatic of the Indian Peninsula
would leave his rice crops by the banks of the sacred
Ganges ; Africa would send forth her dusky deputies ; the
West Indies their emancipated dark men ; Canada her
grateful reformers, and Europe the noblest of her free and
of her fallen races. The voice of Kosciusko, from the
tomb, would command some son worthy of Poland, to join
the great chorus of humanity, in singing praises to the com-
mon benefactor. It would be a testimonial equal to its
cause, if all the world were represented, and not otherwise.

It is the character of true greatness to attract greatness,
as the magnet draws towards itself the finely-tempered
steel. Of this truth, the life of Daniel O'Connell, like that
of a very differently constituted hero — Bonaparte — is a
strcmg exemplification, and much of O'Connell's public
character and glory will be found to emanate from his
" friends."

The age we live in certainly excels all antiquity in the
art of making professions, although it falls decidedly benind
the past in men of genuine greatness of soul. There is
hardly a public man who has earned an emin mt character
for consistency, although many are distingiushed by start-
ing theories, and afterwards tamely suffering them to be
1*

6

run down by the roused indignation of dominant custom and
dogged prejudice. It is cheering to human nature, and
promises better things for humanity, to find, in O'Connell,
a man who has outlived, in the obduracy of a steady pur-
pose, an unnatural alliance of republican prejudice, monar-
chical hatred, and religious animosity ; who has been forty
years before the world, without giving it reason to despise
or detest him ; who has overturned more than one monop-
oly of his o^vn government, and aided, with no unfelt hand,
the struggles of every cotemporary nation and people
aspiring to freedom. If he has undertaken much, he has
achieved much. Ireland rejoices in her free altars, and
open corporations ; England in the abolition of her odious
rotten boroughs ; the West Indies in the overthrow of
the most indefensible and disgraceful of tyrannies, that of
color.

The great work of universal emancipation is scarcely
commenced. One of the first in the field, amongst those
who labored, and thought, and suffered contumely and re-
proach for its sake, was the Liberator of Ireland. Whoever
may live to see the day when slavery shall cease, if hap-
pily such a day will dawTi upon this globe of ours, will see
also, the statue of O'Connell in every free senate — and
hear, in every land, the wise and honorable of that age, re-
peat his story A\4th reverence. Alone, or perhaps side by
side with Washington, he will be placed in the first rank of
those worthies of all the world, whose souls were uncribbed
by custom, and whose benevolent labors were unconfined to
any family, or nation of the earth. In him the everlasting
Church will claim a champion, unexcelled amid laymen
for the severity of his mission. In him Humanity will
claim a priest, entitled to administer at her high altar. In
him Liberty wall boast a model for all her future reformers.

CHAPTER ONE.

Th£ Family of Mr. O^Co?ineU. — His Birth and Educa-

tio?i, collegiate and legal.

The O'Connells are of unadulterated Milesian origin.
Their history is inseparable from that of Ireland itself, and
will now continue so forever. The present head of the
" sept," was, in his youth, as we are told, not unconscious
of the value of the honorable fame transmitted by a long
line of brave and pious forefathers, for, like his own, their
patriotic deeds were numerous enough to transmit some
rays of honor to the humblest and remotest of their de-
scendants.

Kerry, the patrimony of the family, anciently styled
Iveragh, was an independent toparchy, amenable to the
kinsfs of Connaught, in all matters concerning the general
welfare of that kingdom. Originally, it appears, this inher-
itance extended some distance into the adjoining counties of
Clare and Limerick ; but treachery, invasion, and hospital-
ity, ultimately narrowed its limits, so that it now yields less
than £5,000 per annum, nor has its revenue much exceeded
this sum at any time, since the memorable rebellion and
confiscation of 1641.

The O'Connells have been, from first to last, an agitating
family, firm haters of the Saxons, bold foragers in the hour
of national struggle, and ever ready to wipe out in blood
any insult offered to their clan. An Irish MS. preserved
in the British Museum, mentions a Daniel O'Connell,
who successfully opposed an invasion of the Scotch, on
the northern coast of Ireland, in the year 1245. A yet
earlier record (for these are early dates in the dilapidated
annals of modern Ireland) is preserved, of the courage and
patriotism of this family, many of them having fallen on
the memorable field of Clontarf, in defence of the standard
of " Brian the Brave." In the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
the O'Connell of Iveragh made a treaty with that sove-
reign, by whidi he was guarantied the security of his prop-

erty and the enjoyment of his power. The son of this
leagner is mentioned in history, soon after, as High
Sheriff of Kerry. When the last monarch of the Stuarts
besought the land he had repeatedly injured, for support
against that he had too pliantly conciliated, John O'Connell
of Iveragh, raised a regiment of his clansmen, and poured
out of his mountain fastness, to aid the dethroned mon-
arch at the Boyne. In that desperate struggle between a
wise knave and a foolish one, which stained the ill-fated
field of Aughrim in Ireland's true regal blood, and reddened
the broad waters of the Shannon, and flooded the banks of
" Boyne's ill-fated river," the O'Connells remained firm to
the royal weakling, and suffered, as all the best blood of
their land have, by their fidelity. The remnant of their
regiment, sailed with Sarsfield to France ; some returned
to Kerry, but the vast majority lay dead on the battle-field,
or cold within the ramparts of Limerick city. In the lapse
of two generations, Derrynane Abbey, the old residence of
Iveragh's toparchs, passed into other hands, and ultimately
crumbled into dust, in mournful consonance with the for-
tunes of its rightful possessors. The present abbey, which
is of modern date, stands near the ruins of its venerable
predecessor. Its doors are ever open to the stranger, the
board is laden as of old, and the vintage of foreign lands
and the usquebaugh of the mountains, are offered as liber-
ally as any O'Connell of the olden time could wish.

Of that portion of the family who emigrated to France
after the evacuation of Limerick in 1691, several rose to
eminence in the service of various continental powers.
Their names, rendered illustrious in many a bloody field of
Austria and France, rang through their native isle, cheer-
ing the hearts of their kinsmen, and warming others into
emulation. The last of eminence disappeared a few years
ago from the stage — Count Daniel O'Connell, uncle to the
more illustrious bearer of that name. This veteran had had
the singular fortune of being a general in the service of
France, and a colonel in that of England at the same time.
At the period of Bonaparte's return from Elba, he en-
tered the English army, and received a colonelcy, the du-
ties of which command he continued to fulfil, until Charles
the Tenth mounted the Bourbon throne by the right of a
legitimacy, too painfully evident in the sequel of his reign *
when he was restored to his rank and command. Count

9

O'Connell was, we believe, a Hugnonot, and has left behind
him, the reputation of a brave officer.

The father of the Liberator, Morgan O'Connell, of Car-
hen, mingled the high blood of these illustrious soldiers,
with that of a race no less celebrated in the annals of West-
ern Ireland. His mother was a daughter of the O'Donahoe
Dhuv, or the black chief of that clan, whose banners for ages
had waved over Killamey from the summits of an hundred
hills ; whose bugles for the early chase, or trumpets for the
battle, were for centuries re-echoed from the deep glens of
the " Eagle's Nest," and the valleys of Mangerton and the
Reeks. His wife was Catharine, daughter of John O'Mul-
laine, of Whitechurch, Co. Cork ; he was one of twenty-
two children by the same mother, more than half of whom
lived to the age of eighty years and upwards. At the time
of Daniel's birth, he was far from opulent, but possessed
nevertheless a sufficiency to keep up the honor and dignity
of his house, and to bestow upon his sons, John, Daniel, and
James, the advantages of a continental education. This,
however, was a matter of necessity, not choice ; for, accord-
ing to the brutal penal code, no Catholic could educate his
child in Ireland, without being chargeable of felony. The
character of Morgan O'Connell was that of an easy and
plain country gentleman, without arrogance to those of
humbler state, and above the meanness of courting the
smiles of men, whose greater wealth was their only claim
to distinction. He was a model of the old Irish gentleman
— fond of the chase — partial to the follies of his tenantry —
a fond father, and a reproachless husband.

The 6th of August, 1775, is ever memorable in the an-
nals of Ireland, as the birth-day of her Liberator. The
house in which this event occurred, yet stands, although in
a ruinous condition ; the roof has fallen in, and the wall-
flower shakes in every blast on the crumbling eaves. It
stands apart from the village of Cahirciveen, at a short dis-
tance from the highway, which no traveller passes, of high
or low degree, without pausing to gaze upon the classic
spot, where was born the Washington of Europe. The
year of 1775 is one memorable in the annals of Freedom.
In that year America entered on her long and glorious war
with Great Britain ; in that year Henry Grattan entered
the prejudiced and dependent Irish Commons, whom, after
a seven years' war with prejudice and pati'onag'e, he enfran-

m

chised ; in that year, Daniel O'Connell was bom, to "be the
saviour of his people. Some coincidences in historj seem as
if directly ordained by Providence, and of that class I know
none more worthy of remark than the one I have just
mentioned.

Of the childhood of Mr. O'Connell little more is remem-
bered than that he was of a bustling and intrepid nature
fond of physical exercises, as most healthy children are,
and full of pranks and playfulness. His first, and only
Irish tutor, was an aged priest, who often partook the hospi-
tality of his father's house, and who, as he became more en-
feebled by age, made it in great part his residence. He
was one of those, numerous in his day, who suffered a
lingering martyrdom for his faith ; not a martyrdom which
causes death, but one which, instead of taking life away,
spares the existence it has rendered burthensome. A man
of black-letter knowledge, patient and self-denying ; one
who had siiffered too much to love the world and its ways,
but who prayed too much to hate either. A Christian, in
the truly evangelical meaning of the word, since his faith
in Christ Jesus brought him but sneers and persecution. A
scholar, whose yiews were all impregnated with the salt of
sound theology, and whose manner of instruction was often
tinctured with the solemn gloom of the cloister. Such was
the first priest, with whom the future Emancipator became
acquainted, and it would be idle to deny that this good
man's character had deeply impressed him with that high
admiration, amounting almost to reverence, ever manifested
towards the clergy, and that lively sense of the necessity of
a Christian life, the practice of which is one of the most glo-
rious traits in his character. The instructions of this good
man, however, were chiefly elementary ; his pupil at an
early age was sent to the French college of Louvain, and
afterwards removed to that of St. Omers, where, under the
teachings of the Jesuits, he acquired that self-control and
regularity of habits, that profoundly Catholic cast of mind,
that sound theological knowledge, and that invincible logic,
of which the libellers of Ireland, and the enemies of his faith
have often confessed the force in the bitterness of defeat.

Saint Omers was then a favorite resort of Irish students ;
the descendants of the old Irish emigrants in France chiefly
frequented it ; and it must have been a glorious sight to be-
hold the amity which subsisted between these two branches

11

of the old Milesian tree — the one flourishing in a free for-
eign soil, the other preferring to stand on Irish ground, in
defiance of every storm, still aspiring under tlie multitude
of its chains. In all their games the French-Irish portion
of the students sought out the countrymen of their brave
fathers ; in their studies they clambered up the steeps of
fame together, and wo be to him who breathed a word of
reproach against Ireland or France within the walls of St.
Omers.

Mr. O'Connell, it is said, had been intended by his pa-
rents for the church, but he felt within himself the prompt-
ings of a different mission, and with the courage of a true
Catholic, feeling by anticipation, the responsibilities of the
priesthood, he firmly expressed his determination not to enter
on a profession for which he considered himself incapable.
Notwithstanding this, he ever admired the character of his
much reviled instructors, and truly may we believe him
when in his old age he exclaims to the Premier Earl of
England — " I love the Jesuits — I honor the Jesuits.'"^

Many anecdotes are related of the student life of O'Con-
nell at St. Omers, and some of the best have stolen into
print. One of the least current, is that of his having fisti-
cuffed a brother scholar, who protested strongly against such
an ungentlemanly mode of arranging a quarrel ; " attendez
un moment,''^ said O'Connell, and going to his room he
brought forth his sword and pistol, offering his adversary
either, as the only pair of weapons in his possession. The
Frank, however, declared himself for peace, and the afTair
ended. Whilst he was at college the Jesuits frequently
corresponded with his parents, and one, who seemed to have
taken a peculiar interest in his progress, represented him
from the first as an extraordinary youth, who loved power,
and who would rise to eminence by daring and honorable
enterprizes. Thus truly, did " the child become the father
of the man."

O'Connell studied in France in the days of the tremen-
dous Revolution, which not only shook that country in
every part — which overturned the throne, trampled on the
nobles, rooted up the deep foundations of Catholicism, laid
in the days of Pepin, and hardened in the storms of a thou-
sand years — ^but set all Europe in commotion, inflaming the

* Letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, p. 1.

12

literati, terrifying the great, and intoxicating the mechanics
and the toilsmen. Like a silver speck on the heavens, the
nucleus of a tornado, it met the eyes of millions who gazed
with admiration upon the gentle purity of the God-sent
avenger ; but soon it spread forth its lurid wings from hori-
zon to horizon, darkening all above, and wrapping all below
in ruin and desolation ; filling all space with reverberations
of the work of havoc. The young student of St. Omers
looked forth with a steady and statesmanlike gaze, on the
phenomena at work around him ; with a heavy heart he
saw the grand theory of freedom swept away in blood-spil-
ling, and in anarchy, and even then he must have felt the
necessity of a far different and far better system of revolu-
tion. He must have felt that on ruined altars, squares
crowded with scaffolds, and streets inundated with blood,
Freedom could never look down without horror ; and that
any indications of a movement which might tend to such
scenes in Ireland, have always met his unqualified denun-
ciation, is not strange.

Having completed his education in France, Mr. O'Con-
nell returned home, but was obliged, as an Irishman, to study
his profession — that of law — in London. He therefore en-
tered himself of the Middle Temple, where it was only re-
markedof him that he was a good humored youngman,and an
attentive student. After spending the usual time in attend-
ance on the courts of law, he returned to Ireland, and was
admitted a member of the Irish Bar, at Dublin, in Easter
Term, 1798.

The Irish bar was still in the glory of its independence —
there was buoyancy in the national heart, and a generous
emulation ran through the senate, the bar, and the press.
The voice of Curran was heard in the four courts, drying
the tears his pathos had caused. The sonorous and terri-
ble energies of Plunkett, " the Wellington of the Senate,"
still shook the accuser, the criminal, the jury, and even the
bench, at will. The silver tones and gorgeous figures of
Bushe were there in meridian brilliancy, " charming a ver-
dict by the silent witchery of his manner." The morose,
yet unfathomable mind of Saurin, rich alike in logic and in
learning, made another giant figure in that group of colos-
sal jurists ; while, pressing hard after them in the career of
fame, came a younger, and scarcely less noble race —
Holmes, Thomas Addis Emmett, Louis Perrin, and O'Cou-

13

nell. Such was the school to which the pupil of St. Omers
came — already rich in learning, skilled in elocution, and
subtle in debate. Here his first Irish lessons were received,
and assuredly he has done no discredit to his instructors.

Just at the time of his admission to the bar, the projected
revolution of the United Irishmen exploded ; thus teaching
him another painful lesson in the science of reform. Had
he resided in Ireland in '97, and the previous years, it is
probable that he would have entered, with the ardor of youth,
into all the perils of a physical contest. But when he ar-
rived from London the train was laid, the match was lighted,
and all was completed for a rising. He was already a
skeptic in the efficiency and justice of military means to effect
political changes, and, happily for Ireland, he survived the
exile and executions of the Emmetts, Tones, Fitzgeralds,
Orrs, and Russells, to do with other weapons what they
had dared to do in spite of the gibbet and the convict ship.

In his twenty- third year he had the singular advantage,
(to a statesman,) of witnessing the beginning and the end of a
successful revolution, and an unsuccessful national revolt.
It was in this period of unparalleled suffering when the most
sanguine scarcely dared hope for the welfare of the country
— when the Catholic cause was saddled with all the blame
of this unfortunate project — when the props of national inde-
pendence were one by one silently withdra^vn from its sup-
port by the suicidal Castlereagh — when the civil tribunals
were closed, and public meetings dispersed at the bayonet's
point — that Dantel O'Connell vowed before God to devote
his energies to his country, and its altars, and to Kve but for
the emancipation of both. What venal heart could prompt
such generous adventure ? What sinister design could
raise up a volunteer in those disastrous days ? Certainly
there was nothing to gain, and much — life, friends, fortune,
and perchance reputation — to lose, by confronting the inso-
lent foreigner, who had prostrated Ireland lower than ever,
and spurned her as she lay, covered with the blood of her
devoted heroes.

14

CHAPTER T¥0.

The Act of Union. — O'ConnelVs Opposition to that MeaS'
ure. — Robert Emmett. — Revieiu of the Catholic Question
in Ireland. — Rt. Rev. Dr. Milner. — Commencement
of the Veto Co7itroversy. — Suppression of the Catholic
Committee.

The year of 1799 is noted in Irish history for the dis-
cussion of the projected legislative union between Great
Britain and Ireland, emanating from the ministers of the
former power, and strenuously opposed by the patriotic
members of the Irish Parliament, in both houses. It is
often asserted that the Irish Union was a compact made
by mutual consent — but the fact of the standing army being
130,000 strong in 1800, and but 74,000 in 1798, during the
strength of insurrection, conclusively show^s that the means
of repressing popular opposition to the act, were considered
needful to insure its passage under any pretence.

Many meetings, notwithstanding, were convened, and the
mercantile classes of Dublin, especially, were strenuously
opposed to the baneful measure of legislative extinction.
Lord Castlereagh and his followers had more than once
hinted in the debates, that the Catholics of Ireland were in
favor of the Union, and to make truth out of their asser-
tions, they held out emancipation as a result of imperial
liberality. To disprove the imputation thus brought against
them, the Catholics of Dublin called a meeting at the Royal
Exchange, on the 13th of January, 1800, where a large
number attended, and several spirited resolutions were unan-
imously passed. It was at an early stage of this meeting
that Major Sirr, the hireling of the Castle, and the butcher
of the gallant Lord Edward Fitzgerald, followed by his
Janisaries, entered the meeting, and demanded a copy of
the resolutions to be read to him. When this was done,
and while the bayonets were yet glistening in the hall, a
young barrister, robust in form, of an interesting coun-
tenance, rose to support their spirit and meaning. The eye
of the Irish Marat was glistening upon him. It was his

15

first public speech, when, as many years later he confessed,
"he trembled at the sound of his own voice." As he pro-
ceeded, he waxed warm and energetic, and every sentence
that fell from his lips, though nothing but peace was spoken,
was emphasized by the most treasonable bitterness. There
was a boldness, more of manner than language, in his deliv-
ery, a feeling, as it were, of his own strength, which he
could not conceal. He spoke not long, but with much
effect. " I would rather," said he, with a noble vehemence,
" see the whole penal code re-enacted than consent to the
legislative extinction of Ireland." This young advocate of
nationality, and defender of Catholicism, was the future
Liberator.

But in despite of all that eloquence could do — of Grat-
tan's words of fire, and Plunkett's thunder, and Curran's
most beautiful protests — in despite of all that genius could
urge, and talent and intrepidity undertake — the legislature
of Ireland was basely, infamously bartered away, and her
senators sat in the council chambers of another land, amongst
strangers, where her voice could not reach their ears, nor
her miseries appeal to their senses.

There were many of the young men of Ireland, who felt
goaded to indignation by this act. When they thought on
the glories of Dungannon, they blushed ; and when they
heard of Grattan's triumphs abroad, and looked upon the
empty senate house which he had purged eighteen years
before, the tears of vexation streamed upon their cheeks.
Their fathers had possessed a constitution nearly akin to
freedom — they had representatives, who, with all their
faults, were national — were Irishmen. It is not wonderful
that the youth of a people, proverbially sanguine, should
thus have regarded a change from independence to pro-
vincialism, from glory to slavery, from plenty to utter
want. But of the number who most lamented this foul
consummation, history loves to record, with peculiar honor,
the names of two — the one Robert Emmett, and the other
O'CoNNELL. No two men of the present century, more
truly recognized the great principle of disinterestedness ;
none so closely approached the ideal of patriotism ; neithei
feared for the frowns of placemen, nor of the employers of
placemen ; both had hope in the native virtue of their down-
cast countrymen. The only marvel is, that agreeing so
well in the premises, they should have differed so widely in

18

the means of achievement. Yet honor to the man who no-
bly died — who perished with his country, when he found it
impossible to save her ! However his judgment may have
erred, every fibre of his heart, and every faculty of his vast
mind, was responsive alone to Ireland's woes, and employed
exclusively in attempts to ameliorate them. Soft be the
turf upon his ashes, and reverent be the mention of his
name on Irish lips, for assuredly, when the good and bad of
all the world, and of all time, shall throng to judgment in
the dread Jehosaphat, there shall not arise from the earth
nor from the sea a purer-intentioned man than Robert
Emmett, If, however, differing from him, Mr. O'Connell
preferred to live for his country in chains, to watch over
her first returning hour of courage, to catch the faint spark
from her soul, and nurse it into a flame, which should over-
spread the land, and melt doum the brazen pillars of ascen-
dancy, in its ardor — who shall refuse to him an honor
equally deserved, and more wisely earned ? On devoting
himself to Ireland, he found two great reforms necessary,
viz., the emancipation of the Catholics, who were more
than seven eighths of the population; and afterwards a com-
bination of Catholics, Protestants, and Dissenters, in order
to attain a repeal of the obnoxious Act of Legislative Union.
To establish freedom of conscience in the British empire,
to re-create a Senate, and raise a Constitution from the
dead, were the vast projects of his young mind ; and equally
honorable to his courage and his liberality, is the manner
in which he has followed up those designs, against all sorts
of disheartening obstructions.

A knowledge of the state of the Catholic question, the first
labor of the Irish Hercules, at the time he became by com-
mon consent its head and front, is indispensable to the due
appreciation of the magnitude of his undertaking. Laws of
a prescriptive nature, framed upon the sole plea of creed,
had been long accumulating on the English statute books,
against the Catholics of the empire generally, while several
were exclusively against the Irish Catholics. Of the former
number were those denying their admissibility to seats in the
legislature, to all offices under the crown, and denying them
the right of publicly attending Catholic worship, or harboring
a Catholic clergyman ; these grievances were exaggerated
in Ireland by the addition of others forbidding Catholics to
educate their children at Trinity College, (the only univer-

17

sity,) or at all within the reahn ; and disabling them to hold
real estate, if known to be frequenters of a Catholic church.
To these causes of complaint we might add many others,
equally tyrannical, narrow and unchristian. When the Irish
Parliament obtained its independence, in 1782, its most able
patriots beset themselves to carrying out a repeal of these
laws, which, as volunteers, they had solemnly resolved to
do, in the Congress of Dungannon. The emancipators of
that assembly were more able than numerous, and for some
years after they obtained perfect self-control, so many and
such weighty questions of international policy were broached,
such as Simple Repeal, the Commercial Regulations, the
Pension List, and the Regency, that the Catholic cause was
not immediately advanced. There cannot, however, be any
doubt, but that, if it were not for the union, emancipation
would have come to Ireland twenty years sooner than it did
at last. Meantime the subject was not neglected, nor did
its great advocates, Grattan and Yelverton, suffer it to cool
in their custody. There is no record of a session in which
these illustrious men did not introduce the subject for dis-
cussion, and, year after year, new proselytes were gained,
and the minority at last was fast approaching a tie, when
the act of union sent its Irish advocates to plead before a
less genial audience. They obtained, however, in 1793, a
bill empowering Catholics to be educated within the king-
dom, and in Trinity College ; of taking apprentices and of
being admitted to the bar ; " the old millstone still being
about their neck," says Plowden, " the want of the elective
franchise and a fair trial by jury.'"^ It was not long before
this period that the plan, afterwards so successful, had
been first adopted by the Catholics, of co-operating out of
doors, by meetings, addresses, and petitions with their friends
in Parliament. The Irish legislature had always guaran-
teed freedom of speech, and the friends of emancipation had
resolved to make good use of that inestimable weapon against
wrong. They organized and agitated ; they poured in pe-
titions to Parliament and to the sovereign, and appointed
Richard Burke, son of the immortal impeacher of Hastings,
as their agent in London. They induced the lethargic
Catholic nobles to join them, who in most cases were a
greater obstacle than an assistance to the labors of the ener-

* British Empire, p. 178.
2%

18

getic. They obtained, later in this same year, (1793,) on the
recommendation of the king, another bill, the only part of
which, however, really worth thanks, was the title ; for,
after setting forth that it was to be "A Bill to make it law-
ful for Papists to hold any civil or military office under his
Majesty," it commenced a list of exceptions so extensive as
to take in everything worth having, from the lord-lieu-
tenantcy of Ireland, to a sub-shrievalty. But then it ad-
mitted them to the elective franchise and the trial by jury.
Even this instalment, poor as it was, met with violent oppo-
sition from the Lord Chancellor, (Clare,) and was opposed
even by the Speaker, (Foster,) a man otherwise of good
reputation for liberality. Its great advocates, however, with
the aid of many worthy coadjutors, forced it through Parlia-
ment after a stormy and protracted debate. These were the
only benefits which the Irish Parliament, in its indepen-
dence, conferred on the Catholics of that country ; but even
these were promissory of further and wider concessions.
As to what it attempted previous to its independence, it is
hardly worthy of a moment's consideration. Although
Brooke, Curry, and O'Connor wrote, and Wyse, and one
or two other men of property, agitated, the lethargy of the
Catholic nobles, and the cry of " No Popery," were still too
strong for their efforts at amelioration. True, in 1762, they
were empowered to lease " unprofitable bogs," and in 1778
some portions of the " Act to prevent the increase of Popery "
were repealed. But to return to our narrative : — the engine
of legislation, whether dependent or defective, was at last
totally demolished, and the bold spirit of the people found a
dying vent in the spasmodic outbreak of 1803. For a time
they lay utterly stricken and hopeless, not daring to raise
their eyes to their new rulers, much less to address them.
At last, the old system of Wyse, in 1760, and of John
Keogh, in 1793, — the system of a Catholic Committee, —
was resuscitated, rather than founded, and Lords Fingal,
Gormanstown, Trimblestown, and French, Sir Thomas
Esmond, Bart., and a few Esquires undertook to hazard the
experiment once more.

In consequence of the concession of 1793, Mr. O'Connell
did not find himself the only Catholic at the junior bar, and
more than one of his brother jurists entered as warmly into
the contest as himself. They never lost sight of their de-
grading position for a moment, but whether in the crowded

19

assembly, or the social meeting, were ever ready to try their
fortune at proselytizing. Of the most prominent (though
they all did not enter the vineyard at the first hour) were
Messrs. Hussey, Clinch, Scully, and Shiel. It may be
supposed that the clergy, who were the most deeply con-
cerned in the struggle, were not unwilling to lend a hand
in bearing its brunts ; and we find, therefore, the names of
Dr. Dromgoole, Dr. Troy, and Dr. Milner, and later in the
battle, those of Drs. Doyle and McHale, amongst the most
prominent actors in the agitation. These three powers —
the nobles, the barristers, and the clergy, took form in
1805, but were so rent by divisions, and agueish with their
dread of plain-speaking, that they could hardly be said to
exist until 1808. In May, of that year, Lord Fingal reached
London, with a lengthy petition from the Catholics of Ire-
land, on behalf of their committee, which was presented on
the 26th of May, by Henry Grattan, in the House of Com-
mons, and by Lord Grenville, on the following night, in the
Lords. These gentlemen simultaneously announced to the
Parliament the astounding piece of information, that if the
prayer of the petition was granted, the Catholic hierarchy
would thenceforward and forever alloAV the sovereigns of
Great Britain a veto, or negative final voice in the choice of
all the bishops within the realm. Both gentlemen spoke
\vith the words of authority, and there can now be little
doubt but that Lord Fingal, the honest, easy, weak-minded
delegate of the Catholic Committee, had given Messrs.
Grattan and Grenville to understand, that an arrangement
of such a nature might be effected ; as he also did Mr.
Ponsoby. It is necessary, however, to bear in mind, that
the origin of these declarations is involved in much ob-
scurity, which even Mr, Wyse, in his history of the Catho-
lic Association, has not been able to penetrate. Subsequent
events showed that Mr. O'Connell and the Irish bishops
were free from any hand in the base proflfer of such an anti-
Catholic concession.

* At this period Dr. John Milner, an English Catholic di-
vine, of vast erudition and indomitable spirit, was the agent
of the Irish bishops in London. His name has already be-
come familiar in the charch — his writings are amongst the
most approved classics of Catholicism, and his memory will
long be reverenced in the British empire, for the highly
important part he playe'd in the enfranchisement of the

20

Church. In person, it is said, he was plain and almost
repulsive ; in address blunt and unconciliating, but the
rough rind of the gourd held within the purest milk of
human kindness, and encased the kernel of an immortal
genius. He had been a scholar from his infancy, a priest
from early manhood, and a controversialist of enviable fame,
for many yeajs. He was a man without fortune, save in
the riches of his library, and without ambition but in the
dissemination of the faith which was so firmly seated in his
own soul. Had he lived in the palmy days of Catholic
unity, he would have been the Chrysostom of the West.
Under the pressure of penal bonds, he has reached a niche,
side by side with those of Bossuet and Doyle. In all re-
spects he was a powerful pillar of the church — a rough-hewn
one to the eye, but having within the adamantine stamina
of a Loyola, with the culture of a Ganganelli. His name is
written upon the tombs of the penal laws, and, assuredly,
its laurels shall not pass away.

Dr. Milner was bom in London, in 1752, educated at
Douay, and admitted to holy orders in 1777. Returning
to England, he officiated for some time in London, and after-
wards in Winchester. The first occasion of his literary
exertions was in the celebrated "Blue Book" controversy
against Mr. Charles Butler, and the " Protesting Catholic
Dissenters," or Association of pseudo'Caiholics, of high rank,
in England. The object of this association was to persuade
Catholics that they ought to appoint their own bishops,
to take the oath of allegiance, and, in short, to become
Protestants de facto, that they might be free from Catholic
oppressions. A party of this despicable nature had been
gradually growing up in England when Dr. Milner re-
turned to his native country ; he saw at once the magnitude
of the evil, and the urgency of redress ; the following year,
his pamphlets came down upon the brooding trimmers as a
heron pounces on a lake covered with wild-fowl, and lo !
each one screamingly took wing and fled into obscurity.
In 1791 his paper, called " Facts relating to the Contests
among the Roman Catholics," completely annihilated the
" Protesting Catholic Dissenters," of whom we hear no
more.

In 179S appeared his erudite, and much critized History
of Winchester ; in 1803 he was consecrated Bishop of Cas-
tobala, and appointed Vicar Apostohc of the Midland Dis-

21

trict, in England ; in 1801 he published " Case of Con-
science Solved ; or, the Catholic Claims proved to be com-
patible with the Coronation Oath;" in 1807 he travelled
through Ireland, and on his return to London was appointed
parliamentary agent to the Irish Catholic bishops; a duty of
which he so honorably acquitted himself, that he frequently
received their thanks, and those of the Catholic Association.
On his return from Ireland, he again entered the lists against
Mr. Charles Butler and the Catholic aristocracy, in opposi-
tion to their favorite scheme of a veto. The only remain-
ing works of Dr. Milner, to our knowledge, not previously
enumerated, are, his " End of Religious Controversy," pub-
lished in 1818 ; " Strictures on Southey's Book of the
Church," and his " Parting Word to Dr. Grier."^ Besides
these, there are several published letters of his, which, we
believe, have not heretofore been collected, with prefaces to
some Catholic books, notes, &c. &c.

Dr. Milner died at Wolverhampton, on the 19th day of
April, 1826, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. He has
been justly styled the " Modern Athanasius," and there has
been found no sentence in his multifarious writings which
the Church disavows.

The morning after the debate in Parliament, in which
the veto proposition was put forward by Mr. Grattan, Dr.
Milner published a card disclaiming concurrence in the new
lure held out to dilatory justice ; that he did not censure
Mr. Grattan, is sufficiently evident from the beautiful tribute
to his worth and eloquence which afterwards appeared in
his admirable " Letters from Ireland.''''

When the news of the veto proposition reached Ireland,
a shout of universal opposition was raised against it, and
with such terrific energy was it denounced, that many soi-
disant friends of emancipation trembled for the result. The
laity were justly alarmed, the clergy roused to defence.
A national council of the hierarchy was immediately as-
sembled, and twenty-three of twenty-six prelates eagerly
voted for a resolution directly contradicting the assumption
that they would ever place so sacred a power in the hands

* Under this name (his brother-in-law's) the Archbishop of Dublin
(Magee) attacked Dr. Milner, concerning certain passages in the
" End of Controversy." The Archbishop suffered as complete a de-
feat from this luminary of the English church, as he did from J. K.
L., a twin star, of the Irish hierarchy.

22

of the sovereign. Lord Fingal attempted a contrary de-
monstration, and secured four signatures to an address which
he prepared in support of the veto. These, Hke himself,
were lords of a peculiar stamp, who were much more anx-
ious to sit in the upper house, and dine at the tahle of
kings, than to preserve the independence of their spiritual
guides. In the petition of 1809, the slightest hint of any
such concessions on the part of the Catholics was distinctly
avoided, and the resolutions of March, 1810, wherein the
Irish clergy asserted their venerable and never-ceded inde-
pendence, gave to their opposition a still firmer aspect.
This open variance between the old Catholic nobility and
the hierarchy, was daily widening to a breach, when an
event took place which crushed the old organization of the
Catholics — drove some to lethargy — silenced the controver-
sies of others — and left Daniel O'Connell the sole leader
in a troopless field, the pilot of a ship without crew or com-
pass ; I mean the suppression of the Catholic Committee, by
Wellesley Pole, then Secretary for Ireland, and since Lord
Maryborough. This was effected by enforcing the " Con-
vention Act" of 1793, originally framed by the famous Lord
Clare, against the united Irishmen and defenders. On the
meeting of the Catholic Committee, in 1809, Lord Fingal
and other members were arrested, and Mr. Kirwan and
Dr. Sheridan were tried before Chief Justice Downes, for
violation of the law regarding public assemblages. The de-
fence was conducted by Mr. O'Connell, and, though the
packing of a jury for the purpose of a conviction was notori-
ously evident, still Kirwan and Sheridan were acquitted.
They, then, at the instance of their victorious counsellor,
instituted a prosecution against the Chief Justice, which, as
was to be foreseen, ended only in a vexatious acquittal of
that functionary, a result tantamount to a reversion of the
former verdict. This prosecution, however, although it
failed in securing obnoxious individuals, gave to govern-
ment a temporary triumph in the terror it had caused in the
Catholic body, and the gradual falling away of the most
prominent members of the Committee.

At that time Mr. O'Connell had been twelve years in
Dublin, and the Committee had been in existence five. He
had been the great lever of the people. He had worked in
the wake of Fingal and Dr. Troy. He now saw that his
probation had closed, and that he must step boldly forward

and uphold the tottering fahric of emancipation, which
otherwise would inevitably fall. The hazard was great, but
the prize even more so ; and, girding up all his strength, as
one who embarks on a perilous journey, he bravely took the
post of danger, anxiety, and labor, resolved to leave it but in
death, or crowned with success. The members of the shat-
tered Committee, with O'Connell at their head, assumed the
title of *' The Catholic Board," and entered vigorously upon
the new contest. Every member of the new board was an
anti-vetoist, and if it possessed less titles than its prototype,
the Committee, it had certainly more energy, and far greater
effect upon the destinies of the great Catholic question.

CHAPTER THREE.

The Catholic Question continued. — The Veto Controversy
in England. — Richard Lalor Shiel. — Rome and the
Veto. — Father Hayes. — His Career and Character. — His
Death.

The Catholics of England had given before this time
but few and feeble responses to the invitations tendered
them by their brethren of Ireland. They were indeed a
body far from powerful ; weak-minded, low-spirited, and
almost ashamed of the faith, they could neither resign nor
defend. The vast majority of their clergy, and all the
Catholic nobles of England, with two or three honorable
exceptions, were in favor of the veto ; consequently the
truckling policy of Lord Fingal and his friends had found fa-
vor in their sight. Great and influential as Dr. Milner was
amongst his Catholic fellow-countrymen, he could not in-
fuse his own Catholic spirit into their grovelling souls, nor
make his potent voice heard above the din of ten thousand
minor advisers. In the different views which they took of this
important question, we see the strongest illustration of that
temper, which has rendered all attempts at an amalgama-
tion of the Catholics of Ireland and England most unprofit-
able and painful to their common friends. The Irish, more
severely and systematically persecuted ; deprived of prop-

24

erty ; shut out from education ; their priests hunted, ban-
ished, beheaded ; their hereditary leaders in exile, or impov-
erished, with all lost but an independent spirit, which no
law, no administration, could extirpate, — ^boldly and at once
denounced the vile project, and declared their undying
hostility to the principle on which it was founded. In so
doing the laity vied with the clergy in the emphasis of their
reprobation. In England, on the other hand, the Catholics,
few in number, but rich in lands and heraldic honors, had
received treatment of a less demoniac nature. True, the
day had not long passed, when Lord George Gordon, the
commander-in-chief of a miscreant rabble, had pillaged
their churches and residences in London, under the very
eyes of the Parliament and the Court. True, those yet
lived, who remembered the illustrious Challoner, hunted
from door to door, and forced to offer the divine sacrifice of
the altar in a filthy ale-house, under pretence of social
meetings with his flock. But these grievances were con-
fined to the canaille of English Catholicism, and to those
Irish missionary priests, who chose to lead such a life of
perpetual persecution, to save the souls of porters, laborers,
and other unimportant persons. The Surreys, Howards,
and Talbots, who yet held old England's faith, as well as
old England's legitimate nobility, felt not these stinging op-
pressions. The legation of every Catholic court had its
chaplains in London, and the iron walls of Alnwick and
Alton could conceal a priest with impunity, while the mud
walls of the Irish peasant's shed were no barrier against the
bloodhounds of religious fury. The influential Catholics of
England were, as we have said, vetoists ; the majority of the
English hierarchy agreed with them ; and if any one amongst
the mass was opposed to its being so enacted, his voice
was drowned in the opposing torrent, or his lips self-sealed
in deference to superiors, temporal and ecclesiastical. With
the exception of the Irish Catholic peers, the Channel may
be said to have divided the Catholic body into vetoists and
anti- vetoists. The controversy began to look serious — the
brotherhood, so necessary in the attainment of Emancipation,
daily disappeared in mutual recriminations, while the en-
emies of religious equality laughed to scorn the foolishness
of its friends, and chuckled over their suicidal differences.

Such was the state of feeling among the emancipators of
the empire, when the Catholic Board came into existence ;

25

in 1810, and for the three years ensuing, little or nothing
Vv'as done, on either side, but the issuing of pamphlets and
the making orations for and against the veto. In the
mean while, the enemies of Catholic enfranchisement were
not idle. Several pretended a sudden conversion to the
cause, but to range themselves with the anti-Catholic or
veto faction, inciting its members to further breaches, and
rejoicing over its prospective ruin.

At this time appeared in the Catholic councils a young
man, two years beyond minority — Richard Lalor Shiel, a
native of Waterford. Like Mr. O'Connell, his father's for-
tunes had reached at his birth almost to the zero of pros-
tration ; like him, also, he received his education in most
part from the glorious Jesuits. He had studied at Stoney-
henge, where, encircled by the young Catholic nobles of the
empire, he rose up to a prematurity of fame, such as few
men of original genius have attained in their boyhood. At
nineteen, he was as famous in his academy, as Hortensius
in Rome at the same age, according to the panegyric of
Cicero. It was here, beyond doubt, that his mind was first
crippled into that aristocratic mould, which only the tropic
rays of the most intense popular demonstrations have been
able to dissolve from around it. Here, in the gorgeous
dreams of his ambitious youth, was the germ of a spurious
feeling laid, which nothing but chance and insult had pre-
vented from flowering into indolent luxuriance beneath the
genia] star of high-born society. Here, rambling through
the druidical pillars, burthened down with the long accumu-
lating load of centuries, with the first-born of England's
most exalted families as his companions, his imagination
was carried captive by the obstinate aristocratic genius of a
land, which has stolen away more than one illustrious dis-
ciple from democracy. But between him and nobility there
was a fearful obstacle, or rather two of almost paramount
difficulty. He was an Irishman and a Catholic. The son.
of a country without name, flag, or senate — the child of a
church, without patronage in this world, yet chained and
pressed down with the most perverse assiduity. A Chris-
tian separated from, and trodden on by all others. A sub-
ject, yet regarded as a slave and a pestilence in the state.
Even in his boyhood he was too proud to change his creed
or deny his country, and too bold not to hope that these
burdens, now hanging like millstones around his neck,
3

26

might yet become stepping-stones, bearing his footsteps to
eminence and renown. That he might be ennobled by
achieving such two-fold celebrity, he gave up a mind rich
in stores of imagery, acutely and intuitively logical, dwel-
ling with nearly equal delight on the honeysuckle and the
night-shade, displaying by turns his hoards of sweets, and
the infallible poison of a deathly sarcasm. His industry
was a strange mixture of the wasp and bee ; his mental
complexion incongruously formed of the most seductive
beauty, and the most terrible ferocity. All antiquity was
rifled of its bitterness and its splendor. Praetors, archons,
usurpers, tyrants, were modeled out in the world around,
and having given them Roman power and Roman tyranny,
he borrowed the weapons of the dead satirists and tribunes,
wherewith to demolish the inheritors of the vices and the
ambitions they had scourged of old. A most excellent
linguist, and by instinct eloquent, he found himself insen-
sibly on the track of every mighty mind that has swayed
the democracies of ancient time, or left its tokens of exist-
ence among the tangled by-ways of ancient history. With
a keen and headlong haste he rushed forward in the pur-
suit, and before other men begin to study popular eloquence,
Shiel came forth upon the world, to rule the rudest of Ire-
land's' peasantry, in a Roman toga, with a wand of Greece.
From Stoneyhenge Shiel went to Trinity college, and
there graduated, but with no peculiar honors. He then
commenced the study of law, and was admitted to the bar
in IS 14. It was, however, in the two preceding years that
he laid the foundation of his literary and political fame.
While yet a student of Lincoln's Inn, where he was entered
in 1811, he composed in rapid succession, the brilliant trag-
edies of "Adelaide, or the Emigrants," " Bellarmina," " The
Apostate," and " Evadne." Connected with this pillar of
his reputation is an anecdote, which, for his own sake we
wish it were in our power more adequately to explain. The
late celebrated writer, and scarcely less eminent patriot —
John Banim, submitted his glorious tragedy of " Damon and
Pythias " to the supervision of Mr. Shiel ; and to the great
surprise of the author, on its parentage being publicly and
repeatedly attributed to that gentleman, he rather admitted
than denied the rumor. From a brother Irishman, this was
certainly very reprehensible treatment. It is a fact general-
ly received, and one which does as much credit to Mr,

27

Shiel, as the foregoing (if true) is discreditable, that the
accomplished and reproachless actress, Miss O'Neil, took
many of her lessons in attitude from the author of the
" Apostate." Mr. Shiel's fame as a dramatic writer is
based upon his own imperishable genius, and it is no little
addition to our large stock of national vanity, that of the few
really good tragedies recently introduced upon the English
stage, three fifths at least are the productions of Irishmen."^
On the 10th of December, 1813, he entered the Catholic
Association, with his already high reputation upon a brow
of extremely juvenile aspect. His debut on that cele-
brated occasion, in his speech against the resolution pro-
posed by Dr. Dromgoole, asserting the independence of the
Irish Catholic church, is one of the most remarkable epochs
in the history of the Catholic question. The Irish vetoists
hailed him as an apostle of their cause, but the clergy and
the people, while they admired and applauded the singular
power which had enabled him, at the very outset of his
career, to cope single-handed against such gigantic minds
as O'Connell and Dr. Dromgoole, were nevertheless not a
little grieved and chagrined at its misapplication. When
he had closed a maiden speech, unparalleled, we will venture
to say, in either ancient or modern times, " the Atlas of the
Association," rose to reply ; and for many a day, O'Connell
and Shiel, on opposite sides of the question, were tugging
like giants in the contest, pressing logic, wit, rhetoric and
facts into their several arguments, with a reckless prodi-
gality, which would have left bankrupt any other minds in
the empire. It was, like the combats of Homer's immortals,
unseen in the eminence of inspiration, yet the thunders of
their strife surged louder and louder over the land, rivetting
the public mind on the magnificent spectacle, and filling the
air with their alternate notes of victory. In years and girth
of mind, in the firm dogmatism of a rigid resolution, Mr.
O'Connell stood lil^e a rock in the deep sea, whilst his

* It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that in this cata-
logue the Grjsippics of Gerald Griffin, the Damon and Pythias of
Banim, the Alasco of Sir M. A. Shee, the Virginius and Tell of
Sheridan Knowles, and all the plays of Shiel, find place. We might
extend the list to comedy, and be equally gratified in enumerating the
productions of Power, Knowles, Lover, and Mrs. Gore. Assuredly,
the land of Congreve and Murphy did not cast away, at their birth,
the die of excellence in which she had moulded them.

9Q

antagonist waged a Parthian warfare, steel-clad from head to
foot in the shining robes of an exhaustless invective, with
but one vulnerable spot, and that in the unsoundness of the
ground on which he planted his standard, not in the heart
or the head of the champion. The latter had his parti-
zans, but the former had the whole nation at his back ; there-
fore he triumphed, but the first hour of victory was that,
likewise, of the downfall of the Catholic Board. Shiel and
his friends deserted it, and the more violent anti-vetoists,
having now no one to contend with, gradually sunk into
their former indolence, leaving O'Connell and one or two
others alone. In 1814 the Catholic Board disappeared from
the public eye, and nine long years of unmitigated anguish
to the Irish nation, was the penalty of the veto controversy.
During this interregnum many events of importance to Ire-
land, and of course connected with the life of O'Connell,
took place, which we shall briefly glance over.

The Catholic Board had hardly sunk into the repose of
annihilation, when a rescript, addressed to the Catholics of
Great Britain and Ireland, signed by Monsignor, afterwards
Cardinal, Quarrantotti, conceding to the sovereigns of Eng-
land a veto over the appointments of Irish Catholic bish-
ops, reached the laity and clergy in their lethargic sleep.
A meeting was immediately called in Dublin, a remon-
strance drawn up on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, and
Richard Hayes, a Franciscan friar, was appointed ambassa-
dor, on their behalf, to Rome.

This gentleman Avas born in the historic and ancient town
of Wexford, in the year 1787. His family were and are
respectable, not only for their comfortable circumstances, but
the integrity of their character, and the charity of their
hands. From boyhood, the future ambassador gave indi-
cations of extraordinary ability, quickness, and sagacity,
qualities which no Irish Catholic parent ever considered as
thrown away in holy orders. During the terrible scenes of
1798, when the streets of his native town were drenched in
blood, and its hearths left desolate, or became the biers of
their unburied possessors, his young mind did not sleep.
Another tinge of care came upon his thoughtful face, for the
boy was already a patriot. In 1802 he went to Rome, and
after studying for the priesthood, in the college of St. Isi-
dore, was duly ordained, and afterwards admitted to the
order of St. Francis. After an absence of nine years he

29

returned to his country, rich in theological lore, and elo-
quent above any other ecclesiastic of his years. For three
years he officiated in Wexford, where his name is never
mentioned but in a tone of awe and reverential love. In
1814 he removed to Dublin, to the universal regret of those
he left behind, who addressed him as a bereaved family
might be supposed to apostrophize a dying and darling pa-
rent. " Do not leave us," they said, " dear father. You
are one of us ; remain in your native town, and we will
endeavor to live worthy of so good a pastor." The dictates
of duly, however, were stronger in the young ecclesiastic's
heart, than the yearnings of nature, and he departed, amid
sighs and benedictions, never to return. No sooner had he
appeared in the metropolis, than all ages thronged to hear
him. Amongst others, came the great agitator, himself.
He saw in the young divine, then but in his twenty-
seventh year, a mind of no common order, a resolution and
a dignity of bearing, a cautiousness and a fervor, which
struck many a responsive chord in his own feelings. From
that moment O'Connell resolved to enlist him in the cause
of emancipation, and he found the gifted Franciscan nothing
loth.

On the arrival of Quarrantotti's rescript, the Rev. Mr.
Hayes was accordingly despatched to the eternal city, where
he arrived towards the end of October, 1815, with the writ-
ten remonstrance of the Irish Catholics, and with discretion-
ary powers to defeat the machinations of the vetoists and
the intrigues of the British ministry.

His after history, alas ! is briefly told ; and therefore, we
will tell it here.

On his arrival in Rome, he was presented by the supe-
rior of his order, to the Sovereign Pontiff", and to several of
the sacred college. Amongst those cardinals, whom he
found most favorable to the object of his mission, was the
celebrated Gonsalvi, father of the Papal Constitution, of
1816, which abolished the last fragments of feudal preroga-
tive in the Roman States. But the vetoists had long filled
the ear of Pope Pius with representations of the refractory
character of the Irish Catholics ; and the independent car-
riage of Father Hayes, who felt himself the exemplar of his
country and her unchanged creed, was artfully twisted into
a want of the due respect, ever to be shown to the successor

of St. Peter. The ambassador of the Irish Church was ac-
3#

30

cordingly arrested, and afterwards ordered to depart the
city, which with all humility he obeyed. He returned,
with one satisfaction ; Quarrantotti had been frequently
reprimanded by his Holiness and the Cardinal Secretary of
the Propaganda (Cardinal Litta) for his rescript. Of him.
Father Hayes wrote in one of his letters to the Irish Catho-
lics— " He is an aged and weak man, and is in compassion
allowed still to countersign the rescripts of the Propaganda."

When the Irish Catholics heard of the treatment of their
deputy, and saw him return in ill-deserved disgrace, they
drew up a strong, yet respectful remonstrance to Rome,
which lather augmented the power of the vetoists in that
city, and drew from the Pontiff a fatherly rebuke. But the
firmness of the Irish hierarchy triumphed, and they were
once more preserved from the shackles of ministerial pat-
ronage.

Mr. Hayes did not again come before the public until
1821, when, being in London, on the morning following Mr.
Plunkett's proposal of " A Bill of Pains and Penalties," he
opposed that sinister mode of emancipating the Catholics,
in a document of great power, which sealed its fate forever.
It was at this period, that his " Vetoistical Catechism" ap-
peared, in which all the authorities of all ages were searched
throughout, and human reasoning lavished in building up
opposition to the odious and much dreaded measure. In
1822 he commenced the publication of his admirable ser-
mons, so universally read and admired in the church. In
1825 he was one of the ten originators of the CathoUc Asso-
ciation, but in the following year consumption, which, " like
a worm in the bud," had been undermining slowly but in-
cessantly his constitution, at last overpowered him. On the
24th of January, 1824, he died at Paris, whither he had
gone for the benefit of his health, and his mortal remains
were honorably laid in Vere la Chaise.

Thus in the thirty-sixth year of his age, and the twelfth
of his celebrity, the most eloquent of modern Franciscans
departed from this world. He was a man of meek and
humble character, without pretension and without pride, a
ripe scholar, a powerful reasoner, able, untiring and poor.
His sermons are amongst the best of the Irish pulpit, and
will not blush by comparison with the most admired of the
French. His services to Ireland were many and impor-
tant; a young man forced into an arduous and delicate

2i

embassy, he conducted himself without reproach, and failed
without dishonor. To Rome he was deeply and ardently
attached, and it is ennobling to see how truly catholic was
the spirit in which he protested against feeling any want of
respect to the chair of Peter. On the reply of the Pontiff
to the remonstrance of the Catholic body being read at a
meeting in Dublin, Mr. Hayes rose, and spoke thus, in re-
lation to the censure it contained, of his course.

" By faith a Catholic; by ordination a priest; by obedi-
ence, a child of the Holy See ; I bow with unhesitating
submission, respect and veneration, to the centre of Cathol-
icism and source of ecclesiastical subordination, the vice-
gerent of Jesus Christ. I solemnly declare, that I should
choose death, rather than allow any private or personal
feeling or consideration to betray me into the slightest con-
test with or disrespect towards the authority and dignity of
the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Pius the seventh.
My tongue shall never utter a syllable of complaint, nor my
pen trace a line of vindication; for lest scandal should
arise, in the words of the nrophet, I exclaim, " first take me
up and cast me into the sea."

On another occasion some priests in America, chafing
against authority, invited him amongst them, to become
their patriarch and head. But he spurned the infamous
proposal, laid it at the feet of his spiritual superior, and elo-
quently reprimanded those from whom it came.

So deeply impressed did the Sovereign Pontiff become
with the lofty character of Father Hayes, that he was re-
peatedly urged to accept ecclesiastical preferment ; but, no ;
he was am.ply rewarded for his anguish of mind, in being
restored to Rome's esteem, and he died a friar. Beautiful
unity ! Happy subordination ! Truly must their faith be
evangelical, and their religion unalloyed by the world, who
can thus suffer, and thus remain faithful !

32

CHAPTER FOUR.

Mr. O'ConnelVs Personal Career.— Duel loith D'J^sterre. —
Challenge from Sir Robert Peel. — Kerry Election. —
Endeavor to establish a National Party irrespective of
Creed.^-George the Fourth visits Ireland. — Formation of
the Catholic Association.

Mr. O'Connell stood higher than ever in the estimation
of the Irish people, not only from his hostility to the veto,
but because he was made the mark for the bullets of an
assassin, hired by the Dublin Corporation, and for the chal-
lenge of a detested Irish Secretary, Mr. (now Sir) Robert
Peel.

As duelling is a practice alike to be reprobated and
detested, it is well to understand the particulars of these
quarrels, the former of w^hich ended in the death of the
challenger, but the latter was fortunately prevented ; from
both, we will find, the personal character of Mr. O'Connell
came forth unstained by cowardice,"^ as it was free from
premeditated crime.

The corporation of the city of Dublin, by their notorious
bigotry and partizanism, had drawn down upon themselves,
more than once, the satire of Mr. O'Connell. At a Catho-
lic meeting in Dublin, on the 21st or 22d of January, 1815,
he had called them " a beggarly corporation." To resent
the indignity, and rid the Protestant ascendancy party, at
the same time, of the only man in the kingdom before w^hom
they trembled, was the pious thought which immediately
suggested itself to their outraged worships. On the 26th
he received a demand lor explanation, signed, " N. I.
D'Esterre," who stated himself to be one of the corporation

* I am aware that Mr. WilliS; in his " Pencillings," has asserted,
on the authority of Moore, that Mr. O'Connell was, by nature, a cow-
ard. It has been long settled, hovA-ever, on both sides of the Atlantic,
that all is not gospel which Mr. Willis has preached in his time, nor
is it to be questioned that a gentleman who could report private con-
versations, mightj in the matter of pencilling, draw from a fanciful
design.

33

thus stigmatized, and professing to consider it as personally
applicable to himself. This gentleman had been an officer
in the navy, but had retired, and become a merchant, in
Dublin. He was an unerring shot, a noted duellist, and a
violent partizan. Two or three notes parsed between the
parties, and then for a day or two nothing further occurred.
Mr. O'Connell gave his word of honor to Mr. Justice Day,
that he would not be the aggressor, and was therefore al-
lowed to go at large. In the meanwhile D'Esterre dogged
him in the streets, and was in the act, on one occasion, of
going into the Four Courts, to offer him personal violence,
when he was met and stopped by Mr. Richard O'Gorman,
a prominent emancipator. The first note from D'Esterre
had been written on a Thursday, and it was not until the
Wednesday following that the meeting took place, showing
the most fixed determination on the aggressor's part. On
the 1st of February, at forty minutes past four in the after-
noon, the combatants stood upon the ground, at Bishop's-
Court Desmene, Kildare Co., at the distance of ten paces,
each with a pair of loaded pistols, one or both to be fired.
D'Esterre was accompanied by Sir Edward Stanley, Bar-
rack IMaster of Dublin, and Surgeon Peel, while Surgeon
Macklin, and Major McNamara, of Clare, (his second,) were
with Mr. O'Connell. The word was given, the seconds
fell back a few paces, and D'Esterre was mortally wounded.
Two days later the unfortunate gentleman breathed his last,
a sacrifice to the preservation of an unworthy faction.^

In the August of the same year, in consequence of some
expressions used by Mr. O'Connell at a public meeting, a
hostile correspondence took place between Mr. Peel and that
gentleman, which, however, ended as it had begun. Mr.
O'Connell was arrested and bound to keep the peace within
the kingdom ; they then agreed to go to the continent, but
Mr. O'Connell was again placed under arrest on reaching
London. Much controversy occurred relative to this afiair,

* Mr. O'Connell immediately proffered a handsome annuity to the
widow of his fallen antagonist, which she however declined receiv-
ing. This conduct contrasts most favorably with a fact, well known
in the best informed DubUn circles, that the Corporation had bound
themselves to pay the family of Mr. D'Esterre, a certain sum, if he
should fall in the conflict— an obligation which they never fulfilled ;
thus truly proving themselves deserving the epithet, D'Esterre had
died to wipe away.

34

but the only plausible or fair conjecture is that some
friendly Argus kept the police on the qui vive, to prevent
the shedding of valuable blood. Enough has been written
to prove Mr. O'ConnelPs personal courage, and his love for
peace ; his vow against duelling needed the former quality
as much as the latter, in a state of society, and in scenes of
such danger, as England and Ireland presented for the deci-
ded politician thirty years ago.

In digressing upon the personal career of Mr. O'Connell,
we cannot omit alluding to his standing, at the bar. On
almost every case of consequence he was engaged on either
side. He regularly went the circuit, and was always re-
tained against the crown, in cases smacking of political
offences. In some of these pleas, he was truly masterly
and overwhelming; in the defence of the " Whiteboys" of
the south, for agrarian offences ; in the defence of Mr.
McGee, of the Dublin Evening Post, for libel on the Lord
Lieutenant, the Duke of Richmond, and in various other
cases belonging to the same class, he was invariably the
victor. He knew more of the Irish character than any
other man, except, perhaps, the illustrious Curran ; his
style of examining a witness, like his style of pleading, was
all his own — original in every bearing. The happy mix-
ture of humor and severity, the calm dexterous boldness,
and hearty love of a joke, was immediately applied to the
person before him, after a moment's careless prelude, in
which he had grasped the length and breadth, the depth
and strength of the mind upon which he had to operate.
By the overpowering influence of his will, he effected a
mental somnambulism, during which the victim of his
genius confessed involuntarily all he wished to have known.
Himself tenderly alive, as ever was man before, to the
charms of domestic life, he pleaded, with surpassing pathos,
the case of a parent or an only child. Himself loving Ire-
land, as few Irishmen had done before, he expanded into
the majesty of a dictator, when the theme was to be fol-
lowed into the gloomy recesses of the national heart. Him-
self a Catholic, rigidly sincere, and sanguinely enthusiastic,
he felt all the holiness and greatness of his task, when he
had occasion to speak of the faith of the apostles. At the
bar, as in Parliament and in the public assembly, no man
could listen to the tones of his voice, whether gay or sad,
passionate or playful, without being smitten by his sincerity,

35

and carried captive by his energetic zeal. It has been well
said that " he was not only the advocate, but the partizan
of his client."

The chief public act of Mr. O'Connell's life, next suc-
ceeding the Catholic meeting, held on the return of the
Rev. Mr. Hayes, in September, 1S17, was the agency he
took in the Kerry election, consequent upon the dissolution
of Parliament in the following year. In supporting the
claims of the Knight of Kerry, against the Ascendancy can-
didate, Colonel Crosbie, he delivered one of the most splen-
did orations which was ever uttered from the lips of man."^

In 1819, a dinner was got up in Dublin, for the purpose
of uniting both Protestants and Catholics, at which Mr.
O'Connell drank, " the pious and immortal memory of
William of Orange," toasted the Lord Mayor, and kept his
tongue off the Corporation. In return, the Lord Mayor
eulogized the stewards, (Messrs. O'Connell and Shiel,) and
the few Protestant gentlemen present endeavored by cour-
tesy and mutual concessions, to banish the symptoms of
failure which were evinced by certain empty seats. The
movement, unhappily for both parties, expired still-born, and
the fell throne of anarchy was again rescued from ruin.

The visit of George the Fourth, in 1821, to his Irish sub-
jects, raised once more their hopes, filling them with the
most sanguine notions of speedy emancipation, which were
again destined to be disappointed. Lord Fingal was pre-
sented with " a yard of blue ribbon," the only boon offered
" to the Catholic body. Mr. O'Connell was one of a deputa-
tion to present an address to the monarch, and was, of
course, most graciously received, like the others, by the
heartless *' Vitellius," who knew how to smile and hate at
the same time. It was in reference to this, as he regarded
it, slavish reception of the head of the House of Brunswick,
and in retaliation for Moore's " meddling with his dear
Carbonari," that Lord Byron penned his bitter, yet beauti-
ful, satire on the Catholic leaders and the Irish people gen-
erally, in which these stanzas occur :

* Huish, in his voluminous and ill-arranged Memoirs of O'Connell,
(London, 1836,) publishes, by some singular oversight, several pages
of a written address of Charles Phillips to the Electors of Sligo, as
the peroration of O'Connell's speech at the Kerry election ! The
whole address is to be found in the collection of Phillips' speeches.

36

Wear, Fingal, thy fetters ! O'Connell, proclaim
His accomplishments, his, and thy country convince

That a moment like this is worth ages of fame,

And that " Hal is the rascaliest, sweetest young prince."

"Will thy yard of blue ribbon, poor Fingal, recall
The fetters from millions of Catholic limbs ? —

Or has it not bound thee the fastest of all

The slaves who now hail their destroyer with hymns ?

The reception of the king was indeed far beyond his
deserts. A sensualist, in the most unqualified sense, he
could not appreciate the rich tide of affection which the
Irish nation rolled at his feet; neither would he, as an
honest tyrant, command them, Canute-like, to be rolled
back. By nature lecherous, by education obstinate, invete-
rate habits of dissipation had seared his heart all round and
to the very core ; so that there was no chord which the hand
of humanity could thrill, no feeling which a noble sentiment
could count upon for support. A son, undutiful and head-
strong; a husband, foresworn and faithless; a friend, who
regarded men as toys to amuse his leisure hours, and to be
cast off, from any whimsical cause ; he was a monarch only
amongst libertines, and the sovereign scoundrel of his age.
Yet, he professed to love the land of Sheridan as he had
loved her sons, and in the end that profession was found to
be true. While the cheers of her peasantry were ringing
in his ears, he blandly smiled ; whilst the glorious mansions
of her old nobles held wide their gates to admit him to fairy
scenes, he praised her; to the Dublin aldermen he was
prodigiously polite, and to the castle belles the " rascaliest,
sweetest young prince." But the channel once betAveen
Ireland and himself, the people, the nobles, the civic au-
thorities, even the matchless maidens he had paid homage
to, no longer held a place in his remembrance or his affec-
tion. George the Fourth had neither for the grievances of
his subjects, for he had them not for his bosom friends, nor
for his wives.

But a new light was dawning on the land, fairer than any
of the delusive hopes of the past. It did not shine from the
mansions of nobles, nor over the palaces of kings, but in an
humble bookstore, up three pair of stairs, m the city of
Dublin, with but ten witnesses of its ascent, and some of
them very unwillingly so. It was in May, 1823, that

37

O'Connell and Shiel met, without previous design on either
side, at the house of a mutual friend in the county of Wick-
low, where a hearty reconcihation took place between them.
It was then and there resolved to found an association,
whose members should pay a small subscription annually,
to be called the Catholic Association, but at the same time
to take in men of all creeds, who approved of its objects.
On the 2.5th day of May, 1S23, the last Catholic Associa-
tion was formed in Coyne's bookstore, Capel street, Dub-
lin. A preliminary meeting had been held, at which a
committee was appointed to frame regulations for the Asso-
ciation, and the following gentlemen were its members :
The O'Connor Don, Sir Ed. Bellew, D. O'Connell, Nicho-
las Mahon, Eneas McDonnell, Richard Shiel, R. Lonergan,
and Messrs. Callaghan, Scanlan, Oldham, and Hay.
Such are the immortal names of the founders of an asso-
ciation, which soon planted its tributaries in America, in
India, in Australia, and the remotest corners of the earth ;
which strangled, in its worst form and most strongly forti-
fied position, the foul centaur alliance of church and state,
which gave freedom to Christendom's old church, and
swept away from the greatest empire of our times, a favor-
ite system, founded in the morning of its greatness, allied
to all its modern glories, planted on every inch of its new
territory, and flowed through every channel of its pow-
er ; a system on which, for three centuries, the British
senate had propped itself up ; which had accompanied her
victorious generals, and become as the shadow of her for-
tunate flag. At first the Association was a feeble thing,
but its growth to maturity was rapid, and the industry of its
working members could only be surpassed by the energy of
its several champions with the pen and the voice.
4

3S

CHAPTER FIVE.

Sketches of eminent Writers on the Catholic Question.-—
Right Rev. Dr. Doyle. — Thomas Furlong. — ^'■Honest
JbkIc Lawless. ^^ — Thomas Moore.

The Association had no sooner been fairly a-foot, than
the attention of the whole country became rivetted upon its
progress. Its two orators — O'Connell and Shiel — were long
known to the people, as men of surpassingly great genius
and the most profound sincerity in the Catholic cause.
Others there were of various prominence, but these were
such favorites that the Irish heart could take in no other
idols. The people were never wearied of travelling to hear
a speech from either ; the newspapers were considered
worthless if the question — " Is there anything from Dan, or
Shiel ? " — should be answered in the negative. Eloquence,
in savage or in civilized society, must be felt, and will find
its weight — but it is particularly formidable, if orally deliv-
ered, and in times of revolution. There arose, also, from
the people of Ireland, champions of different device and
weapons, but of no less zeal, and little inferior strength, to
guide and goad, by turns, the free longings of the nation.
Of these great pensmen, some must necessarily be over-
looked in our limited space ; I have chosen four names,
however, not alone for their greater celebrity, but because
their walks of usefulness were widely apart, and their ad-
vance characteristic of themselves. Each one's life might
be the subject of a volume of fruitful narrative ; but to them
all, we can give only one poor chapter.

Thomas Furlong was born in the barony of Scarawalsh,
convenient to the ancient town of Ferns, in the county of
Wexford, in 1794. His father was, in the country phrase,
a " snug farmer," who gave him a liberal English educa-
tion to fit him for commercial pursuits, to which end he
was sent to Dublin as an apprentice, at the age of fourteen.
Unlike poor Dermody, he attended punctually to business,
and was loved by his employers for his gentleness and at-
tention. Soon after the publication of " The Misantlirope,"

39

his first poem, in 1819, Mr. Jameson, an eminent distiller
of Dublin, bestowed on him a confidential office, which gave
him a handsome return, and allowed him every opportunity
for prosecuting his mission as a patriot-writer. His first
effort having run through three editions, stimulated him to
further labors ; and in 1824 he published the Plagues of
Ireland, a Satire.

Previous to this time, he had made the acquaintance of
Moore, Lady Morgan, and Charles Robert Maturin, all of
whom entertained for him the highest regard, and in their
several circles, were of much assistance to his reputation,
which they took an honest pride in establishing. He also
contributed extensively to the New Monthly Magazine, and
in 1822 had projected the Neio Irish Magazine. He be-
came deeply interested in the progress of the Catholic ques-
tion, as well from an innate love of justice, as from being
himself one of the number of proscribed Christians in a
Christian land. His pen was often employed, and his purse
as freely produced its aids. He was master of that terrible
gift, which few of our writers possessed or exercised in
verse — the gift of portraying men's innermost thoughts,
follies, and weaknesses, in language as apt as the effect
was evident. Since the days of Swift, there had been little
satire written in Ireland, and that little was of a character
most unworthy of its subjects. Moore had just opened a
nev/ vein, in which he displayed wonderful powers of ridi-
cule, and brilliancy of fancy ; but he could not be said to
belong to the legitimate school of satire. He seized upon
the foibles of nobles, and dandled them with the mischievous
activity of an unvicious schoolboy. He never grappled with
their darker passion — with the criminalities of the court of
the fourth George, or the bitter antipathy of the Eldons and
Percivals to everything like concession. He had too many
flowers in his chaplet already, to covet a wreath of henbane.
It was left to another to shed poison in the cup of the op-
pressor ; and he performed this duty with terrible liberality.
There were few so high as to escape his destroying potion.
He had never basked in court sunshine — had never dispos-
sessed the lap-dogs of fashionable countesses — had never
courted the smiles of the effeminate skeletons who called
themselves the nobles of the land. He had been nursed
amongst the people — was little given to romance, and less
to gallantry. His nature was transfused through his writ-

40

ings ; frank, bitter, terse, and direct in his attacks, he came
upon the castle hacks and demagogues of the land, like the
destroying angel smiting with a sword of flame. He came
not to ridicule, but to exterminate. He has left us this por-
trait of the then viceroy : —

" Talk not of Wellesley ! though there was a time
"When that high name stood forth in prose and rhyme !
Talk not of Wellesley ! who that saw his day
Of more than regal pomp, and sovereign sway —
Who that hath marked him in his time of pride,
Of hosts the leader, and of realms the guide ;
When the crushed nabobs shuddered at his name,
And millions bowed before him as he came ;
The source of power, the organ of the laws,
The mark at once for envy and applause —
Who that hath viewed tinn in his past career
Of hard-earned fame, could recognize him here,
Changed as he is, in lengthened life's descent,
To a mere instrument's mere instrument ;
Begirt with bigots, and beset with fools,
Crippled by Canning's fears, and Eldon's rules ;
Sent out to govern in his sovereign's name.
Yet clogged with those that thwart each liberal aim ;
A mournful mark of talents misapplied,
A handcufl'ed leader, and a hoodwinked guide ;
The lone opposer of a lawless band ;
The fettered chieftain of a fettered land ? "

It is chiefly on the merits of this poem, that many biog-
raphers have agreed in assigning to him the title of the
Irish Churchill. In this, however, Furlong committed a
great fault in coupling the agitators with the enemies of
the land, but one which he more than redeemed by the en-
ergetic co-operation which he lent them, after being con-
vinced of their sincerity. Nor was he an unrecognized
advocate of religious toleration ; the great leader of that
struggle declared him " a thorn in the side of the enemy,"
and at its termination, his portrait was engraved for the
Catholic Association, in common with those of Moore,
Byron, and Shiel.

As on this work his reputation chiefly rests, we cannot
refrain from indulging our disposition to extract a couple of
passages further, indicative alike of a just conception of the
satirist's oflice, a faultless versification, and an ardent pa-
triotism.

Amongst other characters distingfuished in " Saint" Fam*

41

ham's train, was tlie Rev. Mr. Graham, of Magilligan, a
small beer poet and a foaming apostle to the Gentiles. Of
him Furlong gives a finished sketch : —

" Lo ! as his second, in these troublous times,
Comes crazy Graham, with his ribald rhymes ;
View the vile doggrel, slowly dragged along,
To mock at grief, and sneer away a wrong.
Mark how he stoops, laboriously to drain
The last low oozing of his muddy brain,
Until at length, as champion of the cause,
He gains his end — promotion and applause.
It comes ! 'tis his — his object from the first —
'T is his ! and now let Popery do its worst ■
The low-born crowd may toil to swell his pride,
'Tis his to take — to triumph and deride ;
'T is his of new-framed acts to make the best —
To jeer his slaves, and call his faith a jest ;
'Tis his to grasp what cant or craft hath won ;
'T is theirs to strive, to struggle, and pay on.
View this, ye dolts, who prate about the poor •
View it, ye scribes, and say, shall it endure ?
View it, ye race, who reason from the past,
And ask your hearts if such can always last."

The following glorious passage, in relation to the intol-
erant Orange factions, the poorer classes, and the insensi-
bility of the government to the state of the nation, will
conclude our selections from this, alas ! too rare poem • —

"Name not the 'Gang,' let no harsh truths be told
Of those whom senates in mute awe behold ;
Breathe not a fault ! perchance, ere drops a sound,
Their air-drawn hosts may rise and hem thee round j
Their mustered myriads may be poured along.
And by some thrust, or hedge-shot, stop thy tongue ;
Bludgeons or bottles may adorn each hand.
And blazes, blows, and bluster scare the land ;
Great is their power ! think how the lodgers run,
Though none had e'er began at number one.
Great is their power ! nay, turn and gaze again
On the black brethren of Cathedral Lane ;
On the lean race who snatch a scanty pay
From hammering nails and Popery through the day •
On those who stitch, and those who mount the loom,
Round Mitre Alley, or along the Coombe ;
On those half shod, half shirted, and half fed,
AVho steal at night to deck the Dutchman's head.
Great is their wealth ! say, can their stock be small.
When twelve and six-pence came from Donegal ?
Great is their learning ! though some letters tell
That even their great Grand Masters scarce can spell ;
4^

42

Great is their zeal ! their piety ! and great
That cant which links their cause with Church and State.
*****

Let Brownlow talk — let Dawson trumpet forth

The deeds that grace the myriads of the North ;

Let raving Lees prolong his holy lies,

And Goulbourn plead, and Peel apologize ;

Let riots spread, let murders still increase,

And long processions blast the hope of peace ;

Let oaths be sworn, or added marks be told,

More dark, more fearful, than they seemed of old ;

Let lodges curse the country and the town —

Still, late or soon, the faction shall go down.

Yes ! though connivance makes endurance long,

Still truth works onward, and her light is strong j

Though sloth or dulness makes oppression sure,

Necessity itself must bring the cure ;

Though caution comes, and slowly cries, ' Forbear ! '

There 's something drowns that warning — 't is despair.

Yes ! if the dolts who rule, their aid withdraw^,

Man stands self-armed — 't is nature's leading law;

If those who govern, still betray their trust,

And will not act, a tortured people must ! "

But in another character than that of the political poet,
we find him equally patriotic. As the translator of Carolan's
Remains, Thomas Furlong is an exception in the history of
Irish genius. For the previous two centuries, no man had
arisen to unlock those treasuries of song, which in the
crumbling cloister, or the wild, roadless mountain-glen, be-
times found a voice to charm the ear of the wanderer. No
hand had been stretched forth to roll the stone from the door
of the sepulchre, where slept the soul of patriotism and of
chivalry, of religion and of love — the national music, in an
obscure tomb hewn by stranger hands from the chilling
rock.

Carolan, the greatest of the modern lyric poets of Ire-
land who wrote in the ancient language of the land, was
born about the year 1670, at Newton, near Nobber, in the
county of Meath, and died, according to O'Connor, on Sat-
urday, the 25th of July, 1738."^ With high social qualities,
he united all the suavity of manner that usually character-
ized the wandering children of that gentle craft. He was at
once the author of words and the composer of notes, and the
names of more than three hundred original airs are preserved,

* Vide Hardiman's Minstrelsy, vol. 1, page 42.

43

to which he gave birth — and many of which, Bunting in-
forms us, were played at the great meeting of the Belfast
Harp Society in 1792, by the harpers, O'Neil, Fanning,
and Hempson."^ At the age of eighteen he was terribly
attacked with the small-pox, which almost deprived him of
life ; and he only arose from the bed of suffering, to pass
his days and years in incessant darkness. He then began
to make a profession of that which had been previously his
.amusement ; and equipped by the kindness of a benevolent
lady, he commenced a devious pilgrimage, that only ended
at the grave.

But here we have no right to pursue the singular story
of his life. He lived ; he wrote and played, and loved,
and died — ^but was not forgotten. In the days of the Par-
liament, appeared the works of Walker, Miss Brooke, and
Bunting, on the musical antiquities of Ireland. These pa-
triots were followed in their enterprize, by Mr. James Har-
diman, of Galway, who, in 1831, published the first full
collection of the original words, with translations, of Irish
melodies, that deserves the name.

The last labor of Furlonor's life was the translation of the
songs and short lyrical poems of Carolan, for this collection.
In their intrinsic worth, he at first had no faith ; but on ex-
amination, he found them so pregnant with passion and
harmony, that he entered into the labor with all his soul.

As works in which those translations have appeared, are
very rare in cis-Atlantic libraries, it is presumed that the
reader will not find the following specimens unworthy of
his perusal : —

PLAXTY STAFFO'RD.

Air — Carolari's Receipt.

" "When in sickness or in sorrow I have chanced to be,
My hopes, my dear Stafford, were placed in thee ;
For thy friendly care and skill,
And thy drink more cheering still,
"Left the jolly-hearted bard from evil ever free :
At midnight all merrily our cups went round ;
Our joys in the morning the gay cordial crowned j
For the past had plainly shown

That in this, and this alone, '

Old Thurlough unfailingly true comfort found ;

* For the particulars of this celebrated meeting, see Introductioii
to Bunting's Ancient Irish Music, 3d edition, Dublin, 1840.

44

Drinking, drinking,
Never thinking —
Roaring, raking,
Harp-strings breaking —
Oh ! this is my delight — 't is the life for me ;
Then let glasses overflowing
Still o'er the board keep going.
Bright gleams of bliss bestowing
On the sons of glee.

Oh! many joyous years may my friend still see,
This — this my fond prayer to the last must be j
Let the country all around
With my Stafford's praise resound.
As the lover of wild merriment and harmony ;
Filling, quaffing,
Joking, laughing —
Ever pleasing.
Never teasing —
Still plying the gay bard with the song-fraught wine j
Oh ! Stafford, dear thou art
To this old but honest heart ;
Aye ! its fondest, warmest part

Throbs for thee and thme."

The following- is in a different strain : —

NANCY COOPER.

" Oh ! loved one, how temptingly fair is that face,

On which thousands have gazed but to sigh ;
How winningly smooth seems each notion of grace,

"When thy shape of soft brightness glides by ;
Though some in th)'^ absence a throb may excite.

When near thee their triumph is o'er ;
They shrink in thy presence — they fade in thy light ;

They droop, and look lovely no more.

Those brilliant gray eyes, with those tresses all curled —

That bosom where love holds his throne —
Dear ! these are thy dowry for what were a world

To him who could call them his own ?
Of millions the beauty seems blended in thee ; —

But why on this theme should I dwell ?
Through life there 's but sadness and silence for me—

Farewell ! Nancy Cooper ! Farewell ! "

These most pathetic stanzas are the lan^age of a really
poetic soul :

CAROLAN'S MONODY ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE.
"Were Heaven to yield me, in this chosen hour,
As an high gift, ordained through life to las^

45

All that our earth hath marked of mortal power,

The concentrated genius of the past —
Were all the spells of Erin's minstrels mine,

Mine, the long treasured stores of Greece and Rome j
All, all with willing smile I would resign,

Might I but gain my Mary from the tomb.

My soul is sad ; I bend beneath my woe ;

Darkly each weary evening wears away ;
Through the long night my tears in silence flow,

Nor hope, nor comfort cheers the coining day.
"Wealth might not tempt — nor beauty move me now,

Though one so favored sought my bride to be j
Witness, high heaven ! bear witness to my vow —

My Mary ! death shall find me true to thee.

How happy once ! how joyous have I been.

When merry friends sat smiling at my side ;
Now near my end — dark seems each festive scene ;

With thee, my Mary, all their beauty died
My wit hath passed — my sprightly voice is gone —

My heart sinks deep in loneliness and gloom j
Life hath no after-charms to lead me on —

They wither with my Mary, in the tomb."

Such is an inadequate sample of the powers of the
translator, and the genius of the original. It is hoped,
however, that as the life of a hero is sometimes preserved
in the remembrance of a single action — as we judge of a
palace or a monastery of other days by the greatness of its
fragments — that these simple and random selections will
enable those unacquainted with the Gaelic language, to form
a favorable opinion of the skill and poetic taste of Furlong,
as well as of the real genius of Carolan ; to those who
know the latter in his native garb, we need say nothing of
the appropriateness of his Anglo-Irish costume. In exe-
cuting his great undertaking, Furlong possessed no notion
of patronage ; an undying love of country, and warm ad-
miration for the efforts of her genius, was at once his mo-
tive and reward. The following fine lines were the last he
ever wrote, probably suggested by a self-examination on
the bed of death, when he might have asked himself
whether he had deserved the gratitude of his country : —

" Loved land of the bards and saints ! to me
There 's nought so dear as thy minstrelsy ;
Bright is Nature in every dress,
Rich in unborrowed loveliness j

46

Winning in every shape she wears,
Winning she is thine own sweet airs ;
What to the spirit more cheering can be,

Than the lay whose Hngering notes recall
The thoughts of the holy, the fair, the free,

Beloved in life or deplored in their fall ?
Fling, fling the forms of art aside —

Dull is the ear that these forms enthrall ;
Let the simple songs of our sires be tried —

They go to the heart — and the heart is all.
Give me the full responsive sigh,
The glowing cheek and the moistened eye ;
Let these the minstrel's might attest —
And the vain and the idle may share the rest."

In his political life we cannot find that he ever appeared
as a speaker but on one occasion — when the health of Tom
Moore was proposed at a public meeting in Dublin. Mr.
Furlong spoke briefly in response, giving to the bard of all
Ireland the following eloquent character : " It is impossi-
ble," he said, " to speak of Moore in the ordinary terms of
ordinary approbation — the mere introduction of his name is
calculated to excite a warmer, a livelier feeling. We ad-
mire him not merely as one of the leading spirits of our
time ; we esteem him not merely as the eager and impas-
sioned advocate of general liberty — but we love him as the
lover of his country. We hail him as the denouncer of
her wrongs, and the fearless vindicator of her rights." —
Such was the language of his convictions, weighed in the
balance of a kindred genius, and a not inferior patriotism.
They had been personally acquainted many years before.
When Moore visited Dublin, in 1815, Furlong forwarded to
him, for perusal and judgment, a poem in blank verse,
written previous to his nineteenth year — to which the fol-
lowing considerate and encouraging answer was sent : —

" I have read the poem Avhich you did me the honor to
entrust to me, and think highly of the talent and feeling
with which it is written ; but I should deal unfairly with
you, were I to promise you much success from the publica-
tion of it. There is nothing less popular at the present
day, than blank verse ; as some proof of which, I need not
perhaps tell you, (for your subject and his are somewhat
similar,) that the " Excursion " of Wordsworth, one of our
first geniuses, lies unbought and unread on his publisher's

47 "

shelves. If, however, notwithstanding this discouragement,
it should still be your wish to try the fate of your poem
in London, I shall be happy to give you all the aid and
recommendation in my power.

" Yours, &c., Thomas Moore.
" Mr. T. Furlong, &c. &c."

" The Misanthrope," and the " Doom of D'Renzy," with
his better known political musings, and several smaller
pieces of great merit, to be met with in old Dublin maga-
zines, would form an exceedingly beautiful and interesting
volume — one worthy, in point of genius, to keep compan-
ionship with any in the language. Sooner or later, there
will come some man of taste and liberality among the tombs
of the bards of Ireland — the bards of her dark and sunny
seasons ; and to him will the honor be awarded of intro-
ducing the neglected muse of Furlong, bright in her im-
mortal beauty, to the admiration of the world.

Unfortunately for his country, the life of this " great
young man," as Lord Mansfield said of the second Pitt,
dwindled to a most untimely span ; a constitutional weak-
ness, akin to consumption, appeared gradually to undermine
his health, and he grew alarmingly feeble in the spring of
1827. He lingered on till midsummer, eating nothing,
sleeping but little, his body exhibiting to what a shadow
mortality may be reduced, and yet live on. In the long,
weary hours of his gradual dissolution, his religious and
moral habits strengthened and supported him; as he sank
towards the grave, tioo objects alone engaged his mind — the
freedom of his country and the salvation of his soul. In his
earliest days he had been deeply impressed with the pure
truths of revealed religion, and one of his youngest efforts
was this elegy on the death of a dear friend : —

" Ah ! if the Atheist's words were true,

If those we seek to save,
Sink — and in sinking from our view,

Are lost beyond the grave !
If life thus closed — how dark and drear
Would this bewildered earth appear !

Scarce worth the dust it gave.
A tract of black sepulchral gloom,
One yawning, ever opening tomb.

48

"Blest be that strain of high belief,

More heaven-like, more sublime,
Which says, that souls that part in grief.

Part only for a time !
That, far beyond this speck of pain.
Far o'er the gloomy grave's domain,

There spreads a brighter clime,
Where care, and toil, and trouble o'er,.
Friends meet, and, meeting, weep no more."

On the 2oth of July, 1827, the patriotic poet breathed his
last. He is buried in the churchyard of Drumcondra, near
DubHn, close to the grave of Grose, the celebrated anti-
quary, and above his ashes is this expressive epitaph :

To the Memory of

Thomas Fcjrlong-, Esq.,

in whom the purest principles of

Patriotism and Honor

were combined with

Superior Practical Genius,

This Memorial of Friendship

is erected by those who valued and admired

His Various Talents, Public Integrity,

And Private Worth.

He died the 25th of July, 1827, aged 33 years.

May he rest in Peace.

Simultaneous with the publication of Furlong's satires,
appeared the letters of the immortal Bishop of Kildare and
Leighlin, which, for vigor and purity of composition, are un-
excelled. From the importance attached to them on both
sides of the channel, it is but just to say, that he was
amongst the ablest of those who facilitated by their genius
the advent of emancipation.

Born in an age when his country was about to emerge
from her long night of sufferings, war and impoverishment,
he rose sublimely above the darkling millions of his breth-
ren, and the genius of his mind became the precursor of a
brighter and less mutable radiancy. Placed in a rank
where he held power without its semblance, and exercised
its influence without ostentation, he harbored no thought but
what the Immaculate Founder of Christianity might sanc-
tion, and lived by the doctrine that, "no life is more pleas-
ing to God, than that which is useful to man." Through a
struggle unprecedented in the histories of civilized nations,
he passed without a stain upon his robes, although no other

49

was so constantly enveloped in the din of its conflicts ; for,
like those great generals we read of, he who gave orders
with such wisdom, did not disdain to labor with the miner
and the pioneer. Himself one of the aggrieved, the charge
of selrishness never was preferred against him ; his worst
opponent could accuse him of notliing in his extensive con-
troversies, unworthy the pen of an ecclesiastic and a ruler
in the church ; but by blending his sacred love of charity
and admiration of tolerant institutions, with education, the
cause of the poor, and the enfranchisement of conscience,
he gave to politics the spiritual character of the loftiest phi-
lanthropy. His patriotism was generated in his soul, and
the shadow of the altar was with him on the rostrum. No
public man ever possessed greater firmness of character ; no
Christian divine more o^entleness of carriasfe and meekness
of heart ; the homage of a nation could not spoil him for an
hour, nor the eminence of a delinquent shield him from his
rebuke ; the presence of a British Parliament catechizing
him as to his faith and practice, could not abash him, nor
their repulsive sternness render them insensible to the pres-
ence of a superior being — the minister of a more dread
tribunal. In private life ever active for the salvation of
souls, modest and retiring even to taciturnity, pious in his
practice, generous to the poor, he never thought for himself
when parting with his last sixpence ; persuasive to the
habitual sinner, he preferred the mission of mercy to that
of justice, and attracted many to the church by his apostolic
demeanor, whom the most eloquent appeals could never
soften into compunction. In a word, his life was the best
commentary on the doctrines he preached, and they were
of God.

The town of New Ross, in the county of Wexford, has
the honor of being the birth-place of Doctor Doyle. His
parents were of humble rank, but respected by all their
neighbors for their honesty and pious lives. James, their
distinguished son, was born in 17S6. Of his childhood we
can learn nothing, except that he early evinced a studious
habit of mind, and was fond of entering the churches when
few were assembled in them. At school, his readiness in
acquiring every task assigned him, marked him out from
all his juvenile comrades. These indications suggested to
the minds of his parents the station in life for which he was
best qualified. At the age of eighteen he was sent to tlie
5

college of Coimbra, in Portugal, where he completed his
studies, and first entered into orders. He was one of the
last of the Irish Catholic priesthood that obtained an educa-
tion on the continent, as the royal college of St. Patrick's,
at Maynooth, near Dublin, was opened previous to his
leaving Ireland. In the early ages of the church, science,
affrighted from the continent by the barbarian hordes who
swarmed above the prostrate colossus of the Roman em-
pire, made Ireland her isle of refuge, because where the
Roman had never been, the Vandal never followed. 'T was
then that the Continent incurred an educational debt to Ire-
land, which it generously repaid with the interest of centu-
ries during the period when penal laws exiled the scholar,
and made the acquirement of letters a felony in the first de-
gree. For more than two hundred years the cloisters of
Louvain and Salamanca, of St. Omers and Coimbra, be-
held the stalwart forms, and rang with the jocund mirth, of
Hibernian students. Of the college life of Dr. Doyle, we
only know that it led to distinction at an unusually early
age, and was rudely broken off by an irruption of the
French army, under Bonaparte, into Portugal. At one pe-
riod, as he informs us, his mind vibrated between the Athe-
ism of the French philosophers and the truths of revelation ;
but, happily for religion, he passed from skepticism to
faith. During the war in Portugal he joined the army, and
laying aside the garb of an Augustinian, to which order he
belonged, "he took up the cap and sword," ^ as much per-
haps in defence of the monastic institutions of the country,
as from his strong notions of the allegiance due to the Brit-
ish crown. Another countryman became the deliverer of
Portugal — and the friar returned to his duties and his home.
In 1S18 he returned to Ireland, and proceeding to New
Ross, he had the satisfaction to find his parents in good
health ; after remaining with them for a short time and ex-
changing congratulations with his friends, he went to Car-
low, with the intention of applying for a professorship in the
newly-founded college.

At the request of the president he became Professor of
Classics, and, during the seven years of his continuance at
Carlow, filled successively the chairs of Natural and Moral
Philosophy, and of Theology and the Sacred Scriptures ; in

♦ Vide Life, p. 11.

51

all of which situations, he displayed a profundity of knowl-
edge, pleasure in his labors, and a kindness of disposition,
which endeared him to his pupils, and rendered him of im
mense value to the college. In 1819 Dr. Corcoran, bishop
of Kildare and Leighlin, died, and at a meeting of the clergy,
on the 27th of August of that year. Dr. Doyle was nomi-
nated with two others, as candidates for the vacant see ; in
October the Pope's bull arrived, confirming the first nomina-
tion, and on the 14th of November he was consecrated bishop
in the parish church of Carlow, by the Most Rev. Dr. Troy,
assisted by the Right Rev. Drs. Murray, Everard, Ma-
rum, and Walsh.

In a time of peculiar distress and public excitement, at the
early age of thirty-three years, he is placed over an extensive
diocese, whose peasantry turn their eyes towards him for ad-
vice as naturally as do the clergy. A band of fanatics, proud,
wealthy, and domineering, were thrusting Bibles into the
hands of the pauperized laboring classes, and with supreme
charity offering the bread of life to starving and uneducated
cottagers. To relieve present sufferings and prevent the
approach of those in perspective, was the duty of the prelate
and the patriot. With much of the statesman in his natuie,
and an energy equal to any amount of exertion, he used all
his powers and influence to bring about four great political
changes, — the emancipation of Catholics, the abolition of
tithes, the enacting of poor-laws, and a provision for na-
tional education. His various letters and essays on these
subjects would fill several volumes, besides others purely
polemical, which are marked with all the power, ease, and
dignity of his style. The most eloquent series were his
" Letters to a Friend in England," and " Letters on the
State of Ireland," under the signature of J. K. L. As a
political writer he is assuredly one of the first of his age ;
clear, massive, logical, in his arguments, and unsurpassed
in the felicity with which those arguments are arranged.
In his polemical warfare he was engaged against Arch-
bishop Magee, the ablest man that the Protestant Episcopal
Church of Ireland ever enrolled in its ministry. This
learned and truly gifted dignitary was a student of Trinity
College when the celebrated Hely Hutchinson was provost.
After entering mmor orders he conceived an opinion of
going to the bar, and applied to the provost for his consent,
without which he could not jprosecute his intention. Hutch-

62

inson was the pink of courtiers, and as an election was
about to take place in the university, Mr. Magee was given
to understand that if he voted the right way his request
might be complied with. After the election he called on
Hutchinson, who, assuming his blandest smiles, took him
by the hand and solemnly addressed him thus : — " You
knoWi my dear sir, that I am placed a guardian over the
youth of Ireland, and how could I answer to my conscience,
if I were to spoil so excellent a tutor, by allowing your re-
quest?^^ Mr. Magee was successively Dean of Cork, and
Archbishop of Dublin. He is the author of a celebrated
book on the Atonement, and some others, less successful, on
various religious subjects. He was justly the darling of his
party and the champion of his church. With all his fame
and influence, Dr. Doyle entered into controversy with him,
on two occasions : the first, on the contents of a charge
delivered at his annual visitation, on the 24th of October,
1822, in which he used the terms that " the Presbyterians
had a religion without a church, and the Romanists a
church without a religion." In December the charge ap-
peared in an authorized shape, but the obnoxious passage
was much mitigated, the words " without what he called a
religion" being substituted. In 1827 Dr. Magee, in another
charge, termed Popery, " the slough of a slavish supersti-
tion ;" and on this was founded his second and last contest
with J. K. L. The Marquis Wellesley, who was then
lord-lieutenant, gave it as his opinion that his friend, the
archbishop, " got the worst of it." Moore, in his well-
known book, the Travels of an Irish Gentleman, says, in
view of Dr. Doyle's great exertions, " If St. Basil, St. Am-
brose, and a few more such flowers of the churches, had
been able to borrow the magic nightcaps of their contempo-
raries, the seven sleepers, and were now, after a nap of
fifteen centuries, just opening their eyes in the town of Car-
low, they would find in the person of Dr. Doyle, the learned
bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, not only an Irishman whose
acquaintance even they might be proud to make, but a fellow
Catholic, every iota of whose creed would be found to cor-
respond with their own;"^ and the Earl of Shrewsbury, in
his " Reasons for not talcing the Test,'^ speaking of the reply
to the second charge, " recommends it to every dispassionate

* Vol. 1, page 71.

53

rea(!^er ; — for argument and eloquence it stands unrivalled."
From. Dr. Magee's ability or fame we would not detract
one tittle ; he certainly was equal to his gifted adversary, in
every attribute of genius, learning, and research ;, partizans
will contend, on one hand, that he was superior, and on the
other, that his weakness was in the cause he had espoused —
the more likely supposition.

One of the most important events in the life of Dr.
Doyle, was his examination before the Parliamentary com-
mittee, in 1825, on the civil and religious state of Ireland.
In this arduous position, he bore himself with a self-posses-
sion, candor and ease, that astonished his examiners and
the public. Mr. Brownlow, and Mr. Dawson, M. P. for
Down, and brother-in-law to Sir Robert Peel, both bitter
enemies to the Catholic claims, confessed that their scruples
were removed by his answers. The lords spiritual and
temporal, from thenceforth spoke with less dogmatism and
arrogance of the church of Rome and its Irish professors.
The bigot remained,

» « "With the bow-string of his spirit all unbent,"

and only random shots were fired, and they not with much
effect, at the Catholic clergy, from that time up to 1829,
when the emancipation bill was passed. Thus, the grati-
tude of his country was doubly due him ; and had it pleased
Heaven to spare him to his nation, he would have gone on
laboring for her weal until she would become bankrupt in
rewarding him. From '29 to '34 he wrote several able
letters on a Repeal of the Union, Poor-laws, against secret
societies, and on the necessity of a Literary Institute for
Ireland. But his chief and greatest labor was for the abo-
lition of tithes. On this topic he was mighty indeed ; every
source of his strength was fathomed to the bottom, and no
one labored more effectually to instil his own precepts. He
once expressed a hope that in every Irishman's soul " the
hatred of tithes might be as lasting as their love of justice."
Events have proved that neither this deed of justice, nor a
cure for her overgrown pauperism, has Ireland to expect
from a foreign legislature.

The death of this able and exemplary prelate took place
on the 15th of November, 1834, in the 48th year of his
age, and the 15th of his episcopacy. For some months pre-
5#

54

vious, this sorrowful event was looked for with certainty.
It was on a Sunday morning at ten o'clock — the hour of
prayer. A new and splendid cathedral, which he had
erected at Carlow, was crowded as usual — when there came
over the kneeling crowd an announcement of their great,
their irreparable loss ; quickly the dreadful tidings leaped
from lip to lip, and then the hundreds, as if prostrate by a
general paralysis, fell motionless before the altar, and their
moanings only told them to be things of life. But his
mourners were many without that bereaved congregation.
The tidings of his death struck on the heart of the nation
like the herald of a fearful distemper. The desolation of
orphanage sat on every face ; and in voiceless misery of
heart, for many a day the sad event was lamented. The
void which he left in public affection, was the most une-
quivocal acknowledgment of the importance of his position
while living — and the liberality with which all sects became
his mourners, the best testimony to his utility. Surely
there can be no spectacle more truly sublime than the undi-
vided respect poured forth above the resting-place of the
good — when the barriers of sectarian life no longer shut
out the pilgrim, whose impartiality leads him to the shrine
of virtue, even if it be the grave of an opponent. Then,
the petty controversies of life are overlooked in the melan-
choly conviction that a holy and a useful man has bidden
farewell forever to those he taught and those he loved.
Such was the unanimous feeling of regret that pervaded
the people of Ireland, on the receipt of the intelligence that
their J. K. L, was cold in death — that the tongue so elo-
quent, and the pen dipped in inspiration, were thenceforth
to be numbered with the things that were. To the disgrace
of their authors, one or two snarling obituaries were di-
rected against his memory ; but they sought to pierce gran-
ite with their goose-quills. Censure, to be feared, must be
felt ; every one could discover the falseness of the assertions
derogatory of him, whose character was known to all — for
it was simply that of a pious, learned, and highly-gifted
prelate, a taintless patriot, and a most benevolent man.
Long may it cease to be otherwise looked upon ; for then
the altar, science, and civilization will have reached the
evening of their decline, and ingratitude, infidelity and
barbarism will strain eagerly to fill their vacant seats.
In a letter to the Rt. Hon. Spring Rice, Dr. Doyle has

66

rightly laid down his own principles : <' I am a churchman
but I am unacquainted with avarice, and I feel no worldly
ambition. I am attached to my profession, but I love
Christianity more than its earthly appendages. I am a
Catholic from the fullest conviction, but few will accuse me
of bigotry. I am an Irishman, hating injustice, and ab-
horring with my whole soul the oppression of my country ;
but I desire to heal her sores, not to aggravate her suf-
ferings,"

Tho3Ias Moore, whose biogTaphy, such as the public
know it, is as extensively read as the efforts of his genius
are admired, contributed in a great degree, by his Irish
Melodies, the Epistles of the Fudge Family, and other po-
litical pieces, to establish the success of the Catholic cause.
His life, indeed, has been but one prolonged effort of patriot-
ism— one endless succession of thoughts on Ireland. We
find it under his theology in the Travels of an Irish Gentle-
man ; we meet it in the groves of Persia, and on the Ghe-
ber's hill of refuge. In the melodies it melts us into tears,
or rouses us to indignation ; in the epistles it convulses us
with laughter ; in the memoirs of Captain Rock, it assumes
as many colors as*the chameleon — while it is the spirit and
soul of all his thoughts throughout. ]Mr. Moore was born
at No. 12 Angier street, Dublin, on the 2Sth of May, 1780.
His first teacher was Mr. Samuel Whyte of Grafton street,
who had likewise under his tuition Brinsley Sheridan.
Under the teachings of this kind-hearted "Dominie," the tena-
cious memory of his pupil was stored with wonderful rapid-
ity; in his 12th year he meditated and actually commenced
the translation of tbe odes of the Greek poet, Anacreon.
His proficiency in the Latin and French languages was
equally remarkable, and in the history of the middle ages,
a study of which he was always fond. Amongst other pe-
culiarities, Mr. Whyte had a rage for private theatricals ;
and so great was his experience in these matters, that he
frequently managed the " getting up " of the amateur per-
formances, in which the resident nobility of Dublin were
anxious to excel. In these performances, his little pupil
often figured, and occasionally wrote the prologues. Thus,
at an age so tender, Moore by his own merit entered the
high places of the aristocracy, and acquired an unhappy
preference for their habits, which has remained with b'.m
through life. The reUef bill of 1793 enabled Moore to

56

enter Trinity College, where he resumed the translation of
Anacreon, which he completed in 1799, and published,
with a dedication — ^by permission — to George, Prince of
Wales. The work is more admired as a beautiful version,
than for the truthfulness of the translation.

In 1801, Moore, having gone to London, published a vol-
ume of original songs, odes and sonnets, under the title of
" Poems, by Thomas Little the Younger," which contains
many splendid proofs of a fine imagination and sprightly
wit, but greatly tarnished and obscured by a pervading spirit
of lasciviousness. The result of this was, as may be ex-
pected, that the critics rose in arms en masse, and the only
trouble amongst them seems to have been, who should
devour the largest portion of the unfortunate Mr. Little.
This point, however, was universally ceded to the celebrated
Jeffrey, at that time editor of the Edinburgh Review,, whose
strictures, cutting with the easy voice of the south wind,
were far less bearable than the stormy wrath of all the
other defenders of morality and religion. The hot blood
of the bard was stirred within him ; he chose not to pay
back scorn for ill usage, like Byron, but after his own Mile-
sian method of revenge, he sent the critic a challenge,
couched in words of fearful determination. They met at
Chalk Farm, near London, a notorious duelling ground —
but the authorities interfered, and on drawing the charges
from the pistols of the hostile men of letters, discovered
only paper bullets ! This friendly invention of the seconds
was seized upon by Byron, in 1809, in his masterly satire
directed against " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ;"
and he ralhoa both parties without mercy on the occasion.
Once more tht, irritable Anacreon challenged ; but this time
there was no meeting, as Byron was on the shores of the
Bosphorus before it reached him ; on his return from the
Childe Harold tour, matters were amicably arranged by the
interference of Samuel Rogers, and the two bards became
bosom friends. Moore's intimacy with the Prince of Wales
is well known ; the cause of its sudden irruption has been
variously accounted for — but it appears that it was occa-
sioned by the Regent's asking him if he was related to a
certain peer whose family name is Moore ; to which the
poet promptly replied, " No, my liege ! my father was a
grocer of Dublin." A sneer of contempt rose on the noble
faces at the board, and rested even on the lip of George ;

67

and from that night Moore was not seen again in royal
company.^ The inheritors of the blood that triumphed at
Hastings and Agincourt, whose bastard sires had enrolled
their names on the roll of Battle Abbey, turned coldly from
his conversation ; and this was the true source of his falling
into " contempt at court," — disgrace, that, in the eyes of
all upright men, will be a title to everlas^ ng honor ! In
1811 he was very busy at politics, and published two excel-
lent pamphlets on the subject of the Catholic claims— rone,
**A Candid Appeal to the Public," and the other in the form
of "A Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin " — both of
which were of great usefulness at that time. In 1812 he
produced the " Fudge Family in Paris," a series of satiric
letters on the then government, in which an agent of British
diplomacy at Paris, Mr. Fudge, an expatriated Irishman,
Phelim O'Connor, and one or two others, are the writers, and
Lords Castlereagh, Liv^erpool and Eldon, Dr. Duigenan and
others of that ilk, are the prominent butts. This work ap-
peared with the anonymous signature of Thomas Brown.
The " Two-Penny Post Bag," the " Skeptic," " Tom Crib's
Memorial to Congress," and " Intolerance," are his other
prominent satires, all written in a mingled vein of severity
and humor, that teaches the reader to despise the objects of
his spleen without sympathizing in the severity of their
punishment. It was in the same year, we believe, that he
commenced his " Irish Melodies," the grandest combination
of sweet sounds, historic truth, and the eloquent pleadings
of suffering patriotism, ever produced by a single pen.
These melodies are the proudest feature in his literary ca-
reer ; they are universally admired in Europe and America ;
they have been rendered into many languages, and furnished
the gallant Poles with their last war songs. The Irish
heart, barren after the sorrow of centuries, felt their reviv-
ing influence ; and in some measure his own words of hope
are verified : —

"The stranger shall hear thy lament on his plains;
The sound of thy harp shall be sent o'er the deep,
Till thy tyrants themselves, as they rivet thy chains,
Shall pause at the song of the captive, and weep."

* Illustrative of the Regent's extreme vanity of rank, there is an
anecdote tbld of tliat counterpart df Ohefstferfield, the late Beau Brura-
m^i, who laid a wa^^ w'iVh sb'm^s fiieiiil^, in an hc^r oft ex^'^m^nt^

«

53

They have been so often judged and re-judged, ^and so
often eulogized, and by so many eminent critics, that it is
needless to dwell on their claims to universal favor ; for to
those who are acquainted with them, (and who is not ?) all
praise is needless. Moore's musical acumen has been
matter of surprise to the most eminent composers ; amongst
others, Dr. Burney and Sir John Stevenson have borne
evidence to its delicacy and ripeness. The airs he wrote
to, akhough not originally known by very poetic names, are
amongst the sweetest in the world. The great Gemanini
declared he had heard nothing so original west of the Alps,
and Handel has said he would rather have composed " Aileen
Aroon," than his most prosperous operas. The historian of
the Life of Godfrey of Boulogne, the leader of the second
crusade, remarks that " but for the Irish harp, there would
seem to be no music in these wars ;" and an Italian pro-
fessor of great skill exclaimed, on hearing for the first time
the same instrument, " that must be the music of a people
who have suffered slavery." To Moore, next to Bunting,
is due the chief honor of reviving the fame, if not the use
of his country's neglected melodies, and the resuscitation
of her harp. For who but himself could have recognized
the spirit of the " Red Fox," as chanted by some country
crone, and infuse it into that glorious song, " Let Erin re-
member the days of old," — or, that words divine might be
wedded to the popular ballad air of " Thady ye gandher ? "

As a prose writer, Mr, Moore's fame is not equal to his
reputation as a poet. His " Memoirs of Captain Rock,"
published in 1825, is, however, one of the very best books
that ever was penned, on that prolific theme of many pens,
the sufferings of Ireland. The knowledge, the philosophy,
and the wit displayed in its composition, were never equal-
led, to our belief, in a similar work. The " Travels of an
Irish Gentleman in search of a Religioji,^^ it has been
bruited, was a penance imposed on Mr. Moore for the sins
of Mr, Little — which, to judge from its pages, was per-
formed with scrupulous diligence. The biographies of
Byron, Sheridan, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, are all
works of industry, and unblemished specimens of fine style.

that he would call the Prince by his proper name in their presence.
He won the wager ; bat a servant was ordered to call Mr. Brummell's
carriage,, and he supped with "Creorge" no more.

69

The History of Ireland, his most pretending prose work, is
one of the best as yet written of that country, aUhough very
far removed from perfection. It is a singular truth that no
Irish history now extant can be divested of some radical
defect. Taafe is too declamatory, McDermott too meta-
physical ; Keating believes over much, and Tom Moore
over little. But the latter has done more for Irish history
than any other writer in our time who has made it his study
or subject.

From this summary, and it may appear dogmatic, manner
of speaking of the important productions of our national
bard, we pass again to his poetry ; — we pass with willingness
from Ireland's sad realities to Persia's gay romance. Lalla
jRookh needs no praise, can never feel censure, and stands
impregnable to all the beleaguering hosts of criticism.
Original in its conception as in its execution, it has ap-
peared like one of those rare meteors, whose birth a seventh
age is alone destined to witness.^ Our nature has no feel-
ing that it does not reach ; it puts in motion all the complex
machinery of the heart. It is throughout " a string of gems"
— a sheet of gold, scattered with every delicate and gorgeous
flower that " the land of the sun" produces. With a little
stretch of imagination, he has supposed that the pure-minded
Emmet, or the great rebel chief (who seems fated to be the
last of the Geraldines) stood before him for the portrait of
his heroic Hafed. The betrayal is another trait of resem-
blance ; and we would not desire a prettier epitaph for the
late Mr. Reynolds of Kilkee Castle, or loyal Major Sirr, than
that sublime malediction commencing with the line, —

" Oh ! for a tongue to curse the slave."

It is only a little too good for either. " Lalla Rookh " has
passed through the hands of millions ; every dialect in
Europe has its version, and of all the people who read it in
the original, there is not one who does not ever after love
the name of Moore. Shortly after its publication, it was
dramatized and enacted at Berlin, the Queen of Prussia and
the Emperor of Russia taking the characters of Feramoz
and Lalla Rookh. In a letter written by Byron to Moore,

* Here, in the first and second editions, I was guilty of praising
the Revoh of Islam, a poem of great verbal beauty, but dangerous to
morals and criminal towards Christianity.

60

he says, " I shall not suffer the Misses Byron to read it
lest they discover there is a greater poet than their father.'
It is an honorable testimony to Moore's private character,
that those who have written of his career or life, prefer
dwelling on his social virtues and accomplishments, rather
than the triumphs of his fancy or the splendor of his wit.
His conversational powers are attractive and varied, while
no man brings less of his literary pride into company than
he does. With the ladies he is still successful, and, for a
veteran adorer of the sex, he writes love songs with nearly
as much spirit as he did forty years since. He sings, too,
delightfully; for, like another Fitz Eustace, he

" Can frame love ditties, passing rare,
And sing them to a lady fair."

After all the wear and tear affections suffer in passing
though a life like his, his heart is still full of fresh feeling
and vigorous attachment. When he visited Dublin in 1835,
his stay was celebrated as a public event of great impor-
tance ; the high hopes of his original designs for Ireland eked
out, and discovered the same heart then, that once waked
into life and gave a name to her national melodies. His
public reception at Bannow, in the native county of his
parents, was much after the manner of a Roman ovation.
Nine peasant girls, bright as the beings of his own fancy,
crowned him with a coronal of laurel and roses interwoven.
The entire population sang his praises, in their own untu-
tored style, and the following beautiful stanzas, from the pen
of Macdonald Doyle, a young author of increasing celebrity,
commemorates at once the bard and his liberal entertainers.

" "Welcome ! thou minstrel of the "West !

While thousands throng to greet, to bless thee,
In feeble strain among the rest,

A rustic rhymer dares address thee ;
Unskilled to pour the polished lay,

And nursed in life's less favored ranks,
He ventures in his homely way

To welcome thee to ' Bannow's Banks.'

When first I sung, 't was when thy strains

Their wizard spell around me threw,
Of tears,' and loves, and flow'rs and chains,

I fondly trife'd tb sing like yiiu j

61

And if 't was Moore's entrancing songs

That plumed my muse's early wing,
To whom if not to Moore belongs

The little she was taught to sing.

Lone, pining in her dark retreat,

A nameless, friendless thing, she grew,
Wild as the wild flower at her feet,

As simple and as lovely, too;
In sooth she was a lonesome muse.

And few would care to test her voice,
Till, as she sung ot Ireland's woes.

She touched the manly heart of Boyse.*

V

You first awoke her infant lyre —

He bade the puny numbers thrill;
You kindled first its minstrel tire —

He trims and feeds and fans it still.
From you the mimic warbler springs —

You urged her tiny wings to soar ;
If you approve the strain she brings.

Can ' minstrel boys ' solicit more ?

0 long shall Bannow's unborn race,

As countless ages roll along,
In Bannow's rural records trace

This visit of ' The Child of Song.'
Then pardon this untutored lay,

And deign t' accept his humble thanks.
Who, rhyming in his brain-sick way.

Thus welcomes thee to Bannow's banks."

In his matrimonial affairs he has been happier than most
men of letters. His cottage at Sloperton is as inviting a
homestead as ever was the residence of a mind so active
and an imagination so brilliant. His lady was chosen after
his own mode of courtship. " You may go in for eighty
years," was remarked by his friend Byron ; he is now sixty-
four, and the completion of the noble poet's prophecy, is, to
human vision, nowise improbable.

The revival of the Catholic agitation, in '23, which had
dra^vn out the letters of Doyle, and the muses of Furlong
and Moore, produced yet another name well worthy of
honor. Mr. Lawless was a native of Belfast, and one of
the most devoted advocates of emancipation. His disinter-

* Thomas Boyse, Esq., of Bannow — himself a poet of no humble
merit, a patriot eloquent and liberal, and naturally, therefotej a fritentl

6

62

estedness was carried almost to a fault; for there can be
little doubt but that his incessant labors, by night and day,
with voice and pen, sapped the feeble foundations of his
constitution, and precipitated him into a premature grave.
He was a man, whose soul was formed for martyrdom, one
of those gentle-hearted enthusiasts, whose character it is
almost impossible to define, so delicately are the womanly
and heroic virtues blended in their natures. He was a
scholar passionately fond of the history of every noble peo-
ple, and an idolater of his own. In the old Irish character
he saw realized the firm virtue of the Roman, with the fiery
spirit of the Greek character. He was a poet from the in-
spiration of a noble sympathy with the great : to his mind,
McMurough was worse than Satan in his treachery, Crom-
well more terrible than Caligula, and Owen Roe O'Nial,
the perfection of a soldier and an Irish prince. Wrapt up
in these noble contemplations, his own mind became sat-
urated, as it were, with sentiments of chivalry, and he would
as readily have expired beneath the headsman's hands, in
Ireland's cause, as he would have despatched a Beresford
or a Foster, by a few dashes of his fearless pen, in the col-
umns of the Irishman. In person, Mr. Lawless was
neither powerful nor commanding, and his peculiarly stiff
carriage was only redeemed from ridicule by a countenance
at once noble and commanding. A Roman nose, set as
irrevocably as destiny; an eye, large, lustrous, and inces-
santly flashing with the innate light of a well-stored mind,
and an enthusiastic fancy ; a brow, firm, comprehensive and
open, with a bountiful growth of hair, made him conspicuous
in every assembly. His voice was sonorous, and capable of
exquisite moderation, and his action in speaking abundant
and appropriate. His intellect, originally clear and creative,
had been sharpened by classic lore, and strengthened by
long and frequent libations from the delicious fountains of
history. In every pursuit the intensity of his nature led the
way, and its generosity left no estimable fact or thought
unnoted; though he had been an ardent and discursive
reader, he remembered much ; and few men ever better
knew, than he did, how to embellish a rhetorical picture, or
strengthen a position by apt references to the conduct of
antiquity. Such was the man, who, after battling with all
,the Vandalism of the north, appeared in propria persona^
to Work the machinery of the great engine of emancipation.

63

The Irish people knew how to understand so unusual a
character. Themselves without selfishness and without
fear, the name of Mr. Lawless became endeared to them at
once, and during his life the love which they bore him in-
creased every day, more and more. A scholar without pre-
tension, and a favorite without vanity, his personal friends
believed they never could sufficiently display the high re-
spect in which they held so rare and admirable a mixture
of modesty and worth.

The loss of Dr. Doyle was beginning to be less felt, al-
though not less lamented, when another of the ablest friends
of O'Connell and Ireland was taken away, in the death of
Mr. Lawless. He died in London, and was there buried.^

It is singular and degrading, that the best of Irishmen
rest abroad, while the traitors and tyrants — the Castlereaghs
and McNallys, have been carefully restored to her. Grat-
tan, Lawless, Sarsfield, the O'Neils and O'Donnells, the
Laceys, Daunes, and Brownes, have been coveted in death
by England, France, Rome, Austria and Russia ; while
Duigenan and Reynolds are given to the soil, whose very
worms sicken on their perjured ashes. How unworthily
does Ireland's acquiescence in such an unnatural arrange-
ment, compare with the conduct of France towards Bona-
parte ? Mr. Lawless died in Cecil street, London, on the Sth
of August, 1837, and was buried on the 16th of that month.
The London and Dublin Orthodox Journal for Saturday,
the 26th of August, contained the following record of the
mournful event :

" The mortal remains of this gentleman were, on the 16th
instant, deposited in the vault attached to the Catholic chapel
in Moorfields. Several friends of the deceased wished to
offer to the Irish patriot the tribute of a public funeral ; but
the absence of almost all his political compeers from town
induced those more immediately interested to adopt a differ-
ent course. ^ =^ =^ The hearse being in readiness, the
procession moved slowly along the Strand, Fleet street, &c.
The first coach contained Philip Lawless, the eldest son of
the deceased. Captain Lawless, (his brother,) Henry Wil-
liams, Esq., and Dr. Best. In the second, were Sheridan

* "We have seen it stated, recently, in the Irish papers, that an at-
tempt was about to be made to bring home the bones of Lawless, and
we hope it will succeed.

64

Knowles, Mr. J. 0. Gumming Hill, Mr. Witham and Mr.
Ireland ; while the third was occupied by Captain Roberts,
R. N., Dr. Alley, Mr. Robese and Mr. Shea. The funeral
rites were celebrated by the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Spencer,
brother of Earl Spencer, and the Rev. Mr. Hall. The cere-
mony was highly affecting, every individual present having
for years been ' linked in bonds of closest amity ' with their
departed friend."

That the influence of the illustrious writers whose names
we have grouped together, was much felt, not only in Ire-
land, but in all parts of the empire and in foreign countries,
maybe readily conceived. For- what with the pure logic
and lofty eloquence of J. K. L., the irresistible keenness and
crushing sarcasm of Furlonsf, the bold rhetoric and infec-
tious pathos of honest Jack Lawless, and the wit, the
imagery, the pointed commentaries, and the vivid declama-
tion of Moore, there perhaps never was a subject more tho-
roughly handled by such brilliant, yet such diverse talents.
The mind and the heart were the provinces in which alter-
nately these intellectual giants reigned at will, stirring up
old memories to feed the fire of revolution, or arming and
elevating the reasoning powers of the chained populace to
the level of a free destiny. In this, the most glorious mis-
sion of genius, three of them, it is plainly known, sacrificed
time and health ; the third yet lives — the last of the race of
bards. The brightest lamp of his generation has burned the
longest of that host who shed light from Olympus over every
history, country, and passion. Him, of whom the great
Byron wrote : —

" Anacreon Moore,
To whom the lyre and laurels have been given,
"With all the trophies of triumphant song ;
He won them nobly, may he wear them long ! "

65

CHAPTER SIX.

The Catholic Question in foreign Countries. — America. —
Thomas Addis Emmet. — France. — Germany. — British
Depende7icies. — Groivth of the Association. — English
Frotestant Liberality. — Rev. Sidney Smith.

The fame of the wonderful league of mind and enthusi-
asm which formed the Catholic Association, soon spread
abroad. The Irish in America were amongst the first to
give back an echoing cheer to their far-distant kindred, toil-
ing for emancipation, which they had won at the sad pen-
alty of exile. Meetings were held in all the important
cities of the republic, and the honored names of Emmet,
McNevin, Gary, and Custis, were mingled with the most
disinterested sympathy, and the most munificent donations.
The three first named, survivors of the bloody catastrophe
of 1798, drew around their every proceeding the reverence
of the older emigrants from their own country, and the
deference of others, who, although they knew not Ireland,
knew enough of the story of the disastrous finale of the
United Irish Society, to treat with peculiar respect the no-
ble few who survived its wreck. The last born on the soil
of freedom, nearly allied to Washington, and the inheritor
of his principles, was no less devotedly an advocate of
Catholic emancipation. Nor did he stand alone amongst
Americans ; for many good citizens shared his wishes, and
participated in his labors. The name of the first men-
tioned sympathizer has occurred before in these pages, and
it cannot be tiresome or uninteresting to devote a brief space
to the consideration of a character, in which we will find
blended, the best virtues which our nature can cherish, with
the noblest fortitude, and the loftiest purity.

Thomas Addis Emmet was born in 1764, in the city of
Cork; his father Avas a doctor of medicine, who soon after
removed to Dublin, and became physician to the castle.
His father intended to educate him for his own profession,
and for that purpose he studied at Edinburgh, and grad-
uated with distinguished honor. Here he had for school-
6=^

66

fellows, Sir James Mackintosh, Home, afterwards Lord
Advocate of Scotland, and a Swiss, named Constant, who
became a tribune, under the French Republic. He spent
three years in Edinburgh, and his popularity may be im-
agined from the fact that he was president of no less than
five college societies at the same time. Leaving college,
he visited the continent, spending two years on his tour;
he observed institutions with the eye of a philosopher, and
analyzed their conditions with the keenness of a politician.
In all, he could perceive ten thousand voices speaking of
equality, and protesting against the injustice of class legisla-
tion. He returned from his tour, an earnest and enthusiastic
republican. Nor did he hold singular, ideas of government.
Already the example of the colonists of North America had
created an anti-monarchical party in the old world — a party
which has ever since been going onward, strengthening and
extending — which is dignified by the learning and exalted
by the disinterestedness of its professors — which has been
established with a cement of blood, drained from the noblest
hearts of Europe.

On his return to Ireland, Mr. Emmet passed through
London, where he met his old schoolfellow. Mackintosh.
In their conversation, that eminent man advised him,
strongly, to choose law as his profession, assuring him
that, if he did so, he was destined to rise. On his return
to Dublin, he found his eldest brother. Temple, dead, and
soon after entered himself as a law student, and in 1790
was duly admitted. The succeeding year he prosecuted,
on behalf of James Napper Tandy, the lord-lieutenant and
council, for issuing an illegal proclamation ! This bold step
reminds one of the old adage, of warring with the devil,
and holding the court in his own dominions. Nothing re-
sulted from it favorable to the national cause except the
evidence of Emmet's legal ability. The government were
astonished at the boldness, the research, and acuteness of
the young advocate ; and a proposition was immediately
made to him, of judicial preferment. The viceregal wire-
pullers have ever respected the talent which they feared ; it
has been their constant object to pickle and preserve patri-
otism, by clothing it in wig and ermine ; they have thirsted
and yearned after the preferment of those whose opinions
are at variance with their own. But Thomas Addis Emmet
was a man, and an Irishman — a benevolent man, and he

67

therefore refused the proffered honor. It was not for such
a gentle heart and majestic mind as his to be " the interme-
diate executioner," as his eloquent brother said of those
brutal statutes which punished theft with death, and every-
thing above it in like manner. He was born to alter bad
laws, not to execute them ; and he would as soon have
invoked paralysis upon himself, as have sat on the same
bench with a Norbury or an O'Grady.

Mr. Emmet was often engaged in defending the United
Irishmen previous to his actual connection with them in
1796. After that period, by previous arrangement, he sel-
dom appeared on behalf of any of his fellow-revolutionists.
On one occasion, in defending a prisoner for having admin-
istered the oath of the society, he took up that document,
which is as follows, and read it, distinctly, in open court : —

" I, A. B., in the presence of God, do pledge myself to my
country, that I will use all my abilities and influence in the
attainment of an impartial and adequate representation of
the Irish nation in parliament ; and as a means of absolute
and immediate necessity in the establishment of this chief
good of Ireland, I will endeavor, as much as lies in my
ability, to forward a brotherhood of affection, an identity of
interests, a communion of rights, and an union of power,
among Irishmen of all religious persuasions, without which,
every reform in parliament must be partial, not national,
inadequate to the wants, delusive to the wishes, and insuffi-
cient to the freedom and happiness of this country."

" Having read the test," says Dr. Madden, " defended its
obligations with a power of reasoning and a display of legal
knowledge, in reference to the subject of the distinction be-
tween legal and illegal oaths, which the counsel for the
prosecution described as producing an extraordinary impres-
sion, he addressed the court in the following terms : —

" My Lords : Here, in the presence of this legal court,
this crowded auditory — in the presence of the Being that
sees, and witnesses, and directs this judicial tribunal — here,
my lords, I, myself, in the presence of God, declare I take
the oath."

The jury were electrified at his boldness — the bench were
mute with astonishment — the prisoner was acquitted, and
the court adjourned.

68

Nor did he confine himself to his profession in serving
the cause. He wrote an excellent and vigorous style, and,
as he thought deeply and reasoned well, his contributions
to the press attracted much attention.

Emmet and his companions were arrested at Oliver
Bond's, in Dublin, on the 12th of March, 1798. Vfhen he
was conducted to prison, his wife accompanied him, and,
with heroic fortitude, withstood every effort of her friends,
as well as of those in authority, to remove her from his
side. Young and gentle — reared amid the refinements of a
luxurious city, this noble woman feared not sickness, shrunk
not from the dreariness of her gloomy tenement, regretted
not the loss of that liberty, more irksome than a loss of
sight ; but dead to the world, she lived for twelve months in
prison, like a fair plant of another clime cast by stern mis-
chance upon a most ungenial soil.

No sooner were the leaders of the revolution in prison,
than false advisers sprung up amongst the people. Rash-
ness was mistaken for zeal — deliberation for cowardice ; and
victory was lost. Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Tone were
no more. France was a passive spectator of the grievances
she had fostered ; the south had been unsupported, and the
north unsuccessful ; and the rekindled flame of liberty went
out, because there was no wise hand to tend it. Mr.
Emmet and his friends, therefore, entered into a treaty
w4th the government, stipulating for their personal safety,
and offering, as a bonus, to leave the kingdom forever. To
this proposal they received answer, that if they would dis-
close the names of others, not leaders, but men of importance
in the society, their terms should be acceded to. This, of
course, they indignantly refused, and accordingly, their im-
prisonment continued. Early in '99 they were transferred
from Newgate to Fort George, in Scotland, where they
continued three years — Mrs. Emmet still remaining with
her husband. While confined here, Mr. Emmet applied
to Rufus King, the United States Minister in London, for
permission to emigrate to this country, which was sneering-
ly refused. On the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the Pres-
idency, in 1801, his application was more successful ; and
in 1804, after spending two years on the continent, during
which he had an interview with Napoleon at Paris, he
sailed for New York, where he found a hospitable home,
and built up for himself both fortune and renown.

69

His style of pleading is well described by Charles
Gliddon Haines, of New Hampshire — himself an eminent
lawyer — in a neat biographical sketch of Mr. Emmet.

" Helvetius remarks," says Haines, " that the sun of glory
only shines upon the tomb of greatness. His observation
is too often true ; but facts and living proofs sometimes con-
tradict it. Mr. Emmet walks on in life, amid the eulo-
giums, the admiration, and the enthusiastic regard of a
great and enlightened community. Without the glare and
influence of public office, without titles and dignities, who
fills a wider space, who commands more respect, than
Thomas Addis Emmet ? Like a noble and simple column,
he stands among us proudly pre-eminent — destitute of pre-
tensions, destitute of vanity, and destitute of envy. In a
letter which I recently received from a friend, who resides
in the western part of the Union, a lawyer of eminence, he
speaks of the New York bar. ' Thomas Addis Emmet,'
says he, ' is the great luminary whose light even crosses
the western mountains. His name rings down the valley
of the Mississippi, and we hail his efforts with a kind of
local pride.'

" If to draw the character of Homer needs the genius of
the immortal bard himself; if to portray the powers of
Demosthenes requires the gigantic intellect of the great
Athenian orator, Mr. Emmet has nothing to expect from
me. In presenting the features of his mind, I shall describe
them from the impressions they make on me. I paint from
the original. I catch the lineaments of the subject as living
nature presents them.

" The mind of Thomas Addis Emmet is of the highest
order. His penetration is deep, his views comprehensive,
his distinctions remarkably nice. His powers of investiga-
tion are vigorous and irresistible. If there be anything in
a subject, he will go to the bottom. He probes boldly,
reaches the lowest depths by his researches, analyzes every-
thing, and embraces the whole ground. He may be said to
have a mind well adapted to profound and powerful inves-
tigation. In the next place, he has great comprehension.
He sees a subject in all its bearings and relations. He
traces out all its various operations. He begins at the cen-
tre and diverges, until it becomes necessary again to return
to the centre. As a reasoner — a bare, strict reasoner, Mr.
Emmet would always be placed in an elevated rank. No

matter how dry, how difficult, how repulsive the topic ; no

matter what may be its intricacies and perplexities, if any

man can unfold and amplify it, he is equal to the task.
i)^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

" I have spoken of his talent for deep and rigid investi-
gation. I will now again recur to another feature of his
mind — his talent for reasoning on whatever data or premises
he relies on. All the illustrations and all the analogies
which can well occur to the mind, are readily and adroitly
arranged in his arguments. He makes the most of his
cause, and often makes too much — giving a front that is so
palpably over-formidable, that men of the plainest sense
perceive the fruits of a T)owerful mind, without being at all
convinced."

Thus spoke an American of his mind ; hear now an
Irishman, on the qualities of his heart : —

" In men who are ' fit for treasons, stratagems and broils,*
the passions and mental qualities we expect to find are
ambition, vanity, malignity, restlessness, or recklessness of
mind. Were these the characteristics of T. A. Emmet ?
The question, with perfect safety to the memory of Emmet,
might be put to any surviving political opponent of his of
common honesty, who was acquainted with those times, and
the men who were prominent actors in them. Emmet's
ambition was to see his country well governed, and its
people treated like human beings, destined and capacitated
for the enjoyment of civil and religious freedom. For him-
self he sought no pre-eminence, no popular applause ; he
shrunk from observation where his merits, in spite of his
retiring habits, forced them into notice. No man could say
that Emmet was ambitious.

" Emmet's vanity was of a peculiar kind ; he was vain
of nothing but his name ; it was associated with the brightest
of the by-gone hopes of Irish genius, and with the fairest
promises of the revival of the latter in the dawning powers
of a singularly gifted brother. No man could say with
truth that vanity or selfishness was the mental infirmity of
Emmet.

" No malignant act was ever imputed to him. The
natural kindness of his disposition was manifested in his
looks, in his tone of voice ; those who came in contact with
him felt that his benig^nity of disposition, his purity of heart

71

and mind were such, ' and the elements so mixed in him,
that nature might stand up and say to all the world, this
was a man.' Malignity and Emmet were as dissimilar in
nature as in name."^

Such is a brief sketch of the man who was the most
dreaded of the insurgents of '98, and one of the most sin-
cere of emancipationists. A rigid Protestant, he exemplified
in his own conduct that freedom from prejudice, yet firmness
of faith, which he long hoped to see established as a na-
tional characteristic of Ireland, but which, unhappily, he
did not live to see effected.

In all struggles against tyranny, it is reasonable that those
who would be free look to the free for sympathy or encour-
agement. In this case, they were not deceived. The Irish
emigrant, toiling in the forests of Illinois and Michigan,
was startled at the awakening cry of his country ; he flung
down the axe, and thrusting his hand into his scanty
strong-box, gave a hearty cheer and his mite, with an in-
difference to the amount, which would do honor to a mil-
lio7iaire. His brethren in the city were not idle; and
month after month, for five consecutive years, the claims
of Ireland to religious liberty were echoed from one frontier
of the confederacy to the other. This was a new source
of strength to the friends of emancipation, and of terror to
their foes. It is a point on which we fain would dwell, if
not reminded by the title that we must economize space.
The names of those now departed, who were then amongst
the foremost in the fight, are hedged in with such honor as
shields them from the ingratitude of flippancy. We would
not leap over their tombs for a king's ransom. The names
of those who survive, are scarcely the legitimate property
of a biographer ; nor is it any slight to their services that
their merits shall be left to repose in the memory of their
beneficiaries, until they are gathered to the sleep of peace.
The emigrant was found faithful, in spite of distance and
disappointment. The call of every appealing land had
been answered by some portion or other of the population
of the free new world; and it remained for those who
owed to Ireland the debt of descent, and were attracted
towards her by the generous warmth of kindred blood, to
transmit to her a share of those blessings and benefits

* Madjkn'f Life of T. A. Emmet.

72

which freedom had placed in their own hands. They
became liberty's almoners to their own country, as other
classes of citizens have been to Poland, Greece, and South
America.

Nor was the foreign assistance which so materially bene-
fited Ireland, exclusively from the western world. In the
farther Indies, the spirit of O'Connell stalked abroad, and
many munificent contributions were the result of its ap-
pearance."^

France, the hereditary friend of Ireland, gave also from
her treasuries large sums of money, ardent exhortations,
and promises, faithfully observed, of continued co-operation.
She had before given station to Irish soldiers, and learning
to Irish scholars ; it only remained to complete the debt of
international benefaction, that she should have aided in
giving her freedom also.

Germany, the native land of Lutheranism, sent to the
Catholic millions, from many of her states, the most cordial
and cheering assurances of interest, with the more tangible
encouragement of the purse.

The British dependencies in every latitude, felt, more or
less remotely, the influence of this wonderful association.
Its tracts were imported to Canada — perused in the Austra-
lian wilderness, and upon the shores of far New Zealand.
Its debates were asked after, on every arrival, by the rulers
and the ruled ; and not unfrequently, an animating voice
was heard from the most distant colonies of the empire.
Canada, and the North American provinces generally, were
honorably conspicuous for their friendship. Thus, in God's
inscrutable providence, were the foes of British tyranny
raised up in every section of the British empire, until, at
last, the accumulation of their execrations forced even the
tory chief of Waterloo to tremble, and finally to yield.

Such were the workings of Catholic agitation abroad,
during 1S24, and the five succeeding years. Let us now
return to the records of the Association.

The Association having once fairly raised its head, Mr.
O'Connell devoted all his attention to render it thoroughly
operative. For this end, he contrived that no class should
preponderate in its councils — that the nobles, the clergy,
and the people, should have as nearly as possible, an equal

* Amongst others, one of £3000 from British India.

73

control over it, equal interests, and equal honors. Thus
also he continued to remind the latter, that emancipation was
but the precursor of many other struggles and victories — of
associations to procure the abolition of tithes, the repeal of
the Union, and other dear but distant schemes of the popu-
lar ambition. This tended to make the people jealously-
watchful of the Association — to keep their gaze riveted
perpetually upon it, not only as the engine which was to
batter down the ministerial bolts and bars upon their church
doors, but as the precursor of many important advantages.
The clergy also exercised a legitimate influence on the
question ; and if there was weakness anywhere, it was
where a reforming body can best afford to have it — in its
aristocratic members. The harmony thus engrafted on the
growth of the Association, never once declined ; there were
many discussions, but no bitter retorts ; many things were
proposed, and afterwards rejected, but no member of conse-
quence retired in dudgeon, or remained to make reprisals.
The various committees were found enthusiastic in their
labors ; the delegates labored with heart and unanimity, and
a glorious brotherhood existed between all the organs of the
Catholics. Through all these pleasing scenes, it was cheer-
ing to mark how generously the great leader gave from the
abundance of his own laurels, to his chief assistants — to
Shiel, Doyle, Lawless, Moore, and the other great lights of
the agitation.

In 1S25, the Association had reached a strength perfectly
irresistible, in consequence of O'Connell's management ;
asigregate meetings were held all over the country, and the
spirit of Ireland was transmitted through the deputies, Shiel,
Bric,^ and O'Connell, to the Catholics and the people of

* This gentleman, by profession a barrister, was snatched from
society by the bloody and barbarous practice of duelling, in the very
dawn of his usefulness. He was a young man of extraordinary
eloquence, one of the school of '82 ; and had he been longer spared,
would unquestionably have left behind a reputation inferior to no
orator of the age, for grandeur of imagery and perfectness of style.
He had been called ta the bar in 1824, and commenced at the same
time law and politics. In the very iirst term of his legal career, he
was retained by the Catholic Association on an important prosecution
instigated by the Association against Browne, a chief constable of
police in the county of Wexford. In 1825, he was again the advo-
cate of the Association, on the part of the people of Killishandra, ia
the county of Cavan, recently the scene of a desperate party affray.

7

74

England. Amongst these English demonstrations, one
deserves to be particularly noticed; not, indeed, from the
importance of the parties assembled, but from a very witty
and really valuable speech delivered on that occasion by the
Rev. Sidney Smith.^ The meeting was composed of the
clergy of the Archdeaconry of the East-Riding of York-
shire, held at the Tiger inn, at Beverley, within which lay
Mr. Smith's rectory of Londesborough ; and its intent was
to petition against Catholic emancipation. In opposing the
object of the meeting, he commenced by saying : —

" Mr. Archdeacon, — It is very disagreeable to me to
differ from so many worthy and respectable clergymen here
assembled, and not only to differ from them, but (I am
afraid) to stand alone among them. I would much rather
vote in majorities, and join in this, or any other political

"Saint Farnham" sat among the judges ; and yet the judgment and
justness of ihe advocate carried his cause, with an Orange jury and
a most one-sided bench. The next period in Connsellor Brio's career
was his celebrated effort, in conjunction with Messrs. O'Connell and
Shiel, against the ''Biblicals" in the city of Cork. He was not the
least eminent of the famous English deputation, and it was not unde-
servedly that his " brothers-in-arms" gave to him, on their return, the
palm of excellence, humbling themselves to their companion. On
the controversy of the " wings" proposed to be attached to the eman-
cipation bill, in the shape of pensions for the clergy, and the abolition
of the forty-shilling freeholders, when O'Connell was most ferociously
attacked by William Cobbett, and that attack was welcomed by Cob-
bett's friends in Ireland, Mr. Brie stood fast by his friend and country.
A meeting was held in the city of Cork, in which Mr. Richard
Ronayne defended Cobbett's scurrility, and charged Mr O'Connell
with many grave errors, and even wilful faults. Mr. Brie rose in
reply, and delivered a masterly oration. Gallantly he grappled with
the allegations of his antagonist ; and firmer than ev^r before, he
established the name and the services of O'Connell in the generous
hearts of the West. The speech was read in England with the
warmest sensations of applause, but Cobbett could never forgive its
author. In his Register, Mr. Brie was abused as the vilest of men
— as " a ball of new-dropped horse-dung," " the son of a pauper,"
and every other epithet which malice and coarseness could invent.
But Mr. Brie outlived Cobbett's malice, to fall a victim to a less
deadly, though less erring, intention. In 1827, during an exciting
election, he became embroiled with a gentleman of Cork, which led
to a duel between them, terminating fatally, as we have before said,
to this eminent Irishman.

* This gentleman, also, rendered vast service to the cause of eman-
cipation by his inimitable letters, over the signature of Peter Plimley.
Indeed, he has been the fast friend of muny a good cause.

75

chorus, than to stand unassisted and alone, as I am now
doing. I dislike such meetings for such purposes ; I wish
I could reconcile it to my conscience to stay away from
them, and to my temperament to be silent at them ; but if
they are called by others, I deem it right to attend — if I
attend, I must say what I think. If it is unwise in us to
meet in taverns to discuss political subjects, the fault is not
mine, for I should never think of calling such a meeting.
If the subject is trite which we are to discuss, no blame is
imputable to me ; it is as dull to me to handle such subjects
as it is to you to hear them. The customary promise on
the threshold of an inn, is good entertainment for man and
horse. If there is any truth in any part of this sentence at
the Tiger, at Beverley, our horses at this moment must cer-
tainly be in a state of much greater enjoyment than the
masters who rode them. It will be some amusement, how-
ever, to this meeting, to observe the schism which this ques-
tion has occasioned in my own parish of Londesborough.
My excellent and respectable curate, Mr. Milestones, alarm-
ed at the effect of the Pope upon the East-Riding, has come
here to oppose me ; and there he stands, breathing war and
vengeance on the Vatican. We had some previous conver-
sation on this subject, and in imitation of our superiors, we
agreed not to make it a cabinet question. Mr. Milestones,
indeed, with that delicacy and propriety which belongs to
his character, expressed some scruples upon the propriety
of voting against his rector ; but I insisted he should come
and vote against me. I assured him nothing w^ould give
me more pain than to think I had prevented, in any man,
the free assertion of honest opinions — that such conduct on
his part, instead of causing jealousy and animosity between
us, could not, and would not fail to increase my regard and
respect for him."

In conclusion, he assumed a more serious tone : —

" I have also, sir, a high spirited class of gentlemen to
deal with, who will do nothing from fear — who admit the
danger, but think it disgraceful to act as if they feared it.
There is a degree of fear, which destroys a man's faculties,
renders him incapable of acting, and makes him ridiculous.
There is another sort of fear, which enables a man to fore-
see a coming evil, to measure it, to examine his powers of
resistance, to balance the evil of submission against the

76

evils of opposition or defeat ; and if he thinks he must be
uhimately overpowered, leads him to find a good escape in
a good time. I can see no possible disgrace in feeling this
sort of fear, and in listening to its suggestions. But it is
mere cant to say that men will not be actuated by fear in
such questions as these. Those who pretend not to fear
now, would be the first to fear upon the approach of danger ;
it is always the case with this distant valor. Most of the
concessions which have been given to the Irish, have been
given to fear. Ireland would have been lost to this country
if the British legislature had not, with all the rapidity and
precipitation of the truest panic, passed those acts which
Ireland did not ask, but demanded in the time of her armed
association. I should not think a man brave, but mad,
who did not fear the treasons and rebellions of Ireland in
time of war. I should think him not dastardly, but con-
summately wise, who provided against them in time of
peace. The Catholic question has made a greater progress
since the opening of this Parliament, than I ever remember
it to have made ; and it has made that progress from fear
alone. The House of Commons were astonished by the
union of the Irish Catholics. They saw that Catholic
Ireland had discovered her strength, and stretched out her
limbs, and felt manly powers, and called for manly treat-
ment ; and the House of Commons wisely and practically
yielded to the innovations of time, and the shifting attitude
of human affairs.

" I admit the Church, sir, to be in great danger. I am
sure the State is also. My remedy for these evils is, to
enter into an alliance with the Irish people — to conciliate
the clergy, by giving them pensions — to loyalize the laity,
by putting them on a footing with the Protestant. My
remedy is the old one, approved of from the beginning of
the world, to lessen dangers by increasing friends and ap-
peasing enemies. I think it most probable that under this
system of crown patronage, the clergy will be quiet. A
Catholic layman, who finds all the honors of the state open
to him, will not, I think, run into treason and rebellion —
will not live with a rope about his neck, in order to turn
our bishops out, and put his own in ; he may not, too, be
of opinion that the utility of his bishop will be four times
as great, because his income is four times as large ; but
whether he is or not, will never endanger his sweet acres

77

(large measure) for such questions as these. Anti-Trinita-
rian dissenters sit in the House of Commons, whom we
believe to be condemned to the punishments of another
world. There is no limit to the introduction of dissenters
into both Houses — dissenting Lords or dissenting Commons.
What mischief have dissenters, for the last century and a
half, plotted against the Church of England ! The Catholic
lord and the Catholic gentleman (restored to their fair
rights) will never join with levellers and iconoclasts. You
will find them defending you hereafter, against your Protes-
tant enemies. The crozier in any hand, the mitre on any
head, are more tolerable in the eyes of a Catholic, than
doxological Barebones and tonsured Cromwells.

" We preach to our congregations, sir, that a tree is
known by its fruits. By the fruits it produces, I will judge
your system. What has it done for Ireland ? New Zealand
is emerging — Otaheite is emerging — Ireland is not emerg-
ing ; she is still veiled in darkness ; her children, safe under
no law, live in the very shadow of death. Has your sys-
tem of exclusion made Ireland rich ? Has it made Ireland
loyal ? Has it made Ireland free ? Has it made Ireland
happy ? How is the wealth of Ireland proved ? Is it by
the naked, idle, suffering savages, who are slumbering on
the mud floors of their cabins ? In what does the loyalty of
Ireland consist ? Is it in the eagerness with which they
would range themselves under the hostile banner of any
invader, for your destruction and for your distress ? Is it
liberty when men breathe and move among the bayonets of
English soldiers ? Is their happiness and their history any-
thing but such a tissue of murders, burnings, hanging, famine
and disease, as never existed in the annals of the world ?
This is the system, which, I am sure, with very different
intentions, and different views of its effects, you are met to
uphold. These are the dreadful consequences, which those
laws your petition prays may be continued, have produced
upon Ireland. From the principles of that system, from the
cruelty of those laws, I turn, and turn with the homage of
my whole heart to that memorable proclamation which the
Head of our Church, the present monarch of these realms,
has lately made to his hereditary dominions of Hanover — •
that no man should he subjected to civil incapacities on ac-
count of religious opinions. Sir, there have been many

memorable things done in this reign. Hostile armies have
7#

78

been destroyed ; fleets have been captured ; formidable
combinations have been broli:en to pieces — but this senti'
ment in the mouth of a Jiing^ deserves more than all glories
and victories, the notice of that historian who is destined to
tell to future ages the deeds of the English people. I hope
he will lavish upon it every gem which glitters in the cabi-
net of genius, and so uphold it to the world that it will be
remembered when Waterloo is forgotten, and when the fall
of Paris is blotted out from the memory of man. Great as
it is, sir, this is not the only pleasure I have received in
these latter days. I have seen within these few weeks, a
degree of wisdom in our mercantile law, such superiority
to vulgar prejudice, views so just and so profound, that it
seemed to me as if I was reading the works of a speculative
economist, rather than the improvement of a practical poli-
tician, agreed to by a legislative assembly, and upon the
eve of being carried into execution, for the benefit of a great
people. Let who will be their master, I honor and praise
the ministers who have learned such a lesson. I rejoice
that I have lived to see such an improvement in English
affairs — that the stubborn resistance to all improvement, the
contempt of all scientific reasoning, and the rigid adhesion
to every stupid error, which so long characterized the pro-
ceedings of this country, is fast giving way to better things,
under better men, placed in better circumstances.

" I confess it is not without severe pain that, in the midst
of all this expansion and improvement, I perceive that in
our profession we are still calling for the same exclusion —
still asking that the same fetters may be riveted on our
fellow-creatures — still mistaking what constitutes the weak-
ness and misfortune of the church, for that which contri-
butes to its glory, its dignity, and its strength. Sir, there
are two petitions at this moment in this house, against two
of the wisest and best measures which ever came into the
British Parliament, against the impending corn-law, and
against the Catholic emancipation — the one bill intended to
increase the comforts, and the other to allay the bad pas-
sions of men. Sir, I am not in a situation of life to do
much good, but I will take care that I will not willingly do
any evil. The wealth of the Riding should not tempt me
to petition against either of those bills. With the corn bill
I have nothing to do at this time. Of the Catholic eman-
cipation bill, I shall say, that it will be the foundation-stone

79

of a lasting religious peace — that it will give to Ireland not
all that it wants, but what it most wants, and without which
no other boon will be of any avail.

" When this bill passes, it will be a signal to all the reli-
gious sects of that unhappy country to lay aside their mu-
tual hatred, and to live in peace, as equal men should live
under equal law ; when this bill passes, the Orange flag
will fall; when this bill passes, the Green flag of the rebel
will fall ; when this bill passes, no other flag will fly in the
land of Erin, than that flag which blends the Lion with
the Harp — that flag which, wherever it does fly, is the sign
of freedom and of joy — the only banner in Europe, which
floats over a limited king and a free people."

About the same time, the Lord Bishop of Norwich, in
his seat in the House of Lords, delivered a very hearty
speech on behalf of the Catholics, the peroration of which
ran thus : —

" I have to detain your lordships only a few minutes
more. If it could be proved — but I think it never will —
that the worldly advantage of any particular ecclesiastical
establishment of Christianity cannot be maintained without
an obvious violation, on the part of its members, of the
leading principles of the Christian religion ; such, for
instance, as that most excellent precept, to ' do unto others,
in all cases, as we would they should do unto us,' and that
' new comrriandment, to love one another ' — new, both in
degree and in extent, which our Divine Master bequeathed
to his followers, as his last and best legacy; if, I say, even
the Church of England cannot stand, unless its members be
called upon to act in direct opposition to those distinguished
precepts of our holy religion, I, for one, should say, without
the smallest hesitation, let it fall ; for, my lords, it must
never be forgotten, that an ecclesiastical establishment is no
part of Christianity, but the mode only of propagating its
doctrines ; as has been accurately and justly remarked by
Archdeacon Paley. It seems, then, to follow, as a legiti-
mate consequence, that the outward building, the mere fabric
of the temple, would hardly be worth preserving, if that
charity, which is the guardian angel of the inner temple,
had taken its flight, and ' the glory was departed.'

" I shall, perhaps, be asked — indeed, I have been asked
more than once — if I feel prepared to abide by the result of

80

my opinions; a result which, in tne judgment of some,
must be attended with the entire loss of those pecuniary
advantages, and of the honor of a seat in this House, which
I derive from my present situation in the Established
Church ? To my present situation in the Established
Church ? To this question, my lords, my answer is verj
short and very sincere. Worldly advantages, of whatevei
description, which can only be secured by the oppression
of five millions of loyal fellow-subjects, and conscientious
fellow-Christians, have no charms for me ; they are poor
and valueless ; I do not wish to hold them by so bad a
tenure ; on the contrary, I would gladly relinquish them
to-morrow, and 'eat my bread in peace and privacy,' if,
by so doing, the cause which I have at heart could be
effectually promoted.

" These, my lords, are my genuine sentiments ; they
have been the same for more than half a century, and I am
now much too old to change them. I dare not, however,
rashly say, as has been said, that whatever alteration of cir-
cumstances may occur in this ever-shifting scene of human
life, these sentiments will remain unaltered ; but I will say,
that reflecting seriously upon what has passed, and is still
passing before my eyes, there is very little probability of
my thinking differently from what I now do.

" With respect to the political part of the subject now
under your lordships' consideration, it is not in my prov-
ince ; and if it were, I should be unwilling to Aveary your
lordships' attention by a repetition of those unanswered
and unanswerable arguments which have been so often
urged in behalf of the Catholics, by many of the best and
wisest men of the age in which we live ; I must, notwith-
standing, venture to observe, that your lordships have, once
more, an opportunity of doing tardy justice to a large por-
tion of his Majesty's subjects, — an opportunity which, if
neglected, is likely to be followed, and at no very distant
period, by events which neither the wisdom nor the power
of government may be able to control."

We have copied these sentiments of two Protestant eccle-
siastics, as a delightful evidence of the consoling truth, that
in all religions, there are true Christians — even in the
church of a state. Because, also, they are rare evidences
of a spirit, a little of which would not be thrown away upon
certain divines of other countries, more especially of this.

81

But our readers must not suppose that the path of eman-
cipation was, by any means, a thornless one. There is not,
in the history of government, a precedent for the determined
hostility with which the ministers regarded emancipation.
The " great captain " of Waterloo, and his worthy croupier
of Tamworth, solemnly and repeatedly, and in the face of
the nation, declared they never would sanction its princi-
ples becoming a law. But the Duke of York, the profli-
gate and spendthrift Duke of York, who had neither faith
nor conscience of his own, who regarded no creed, and rev-
erenced no altar, although a bishop and a Brunswick, made
even a more solemn declaration than theirs ; for, in the
House of Lords, he blasphemously swore, that — " so help
him God, in every situation he would uphold the principles
of hostility to Catholics, in which he had been brought
yp_"# This expression coming from the heir presumptive
to the throne, was justly regarded as a great strength to the
enemies of emancipation, but the Duke was soon called
from the " situation" in which he then stood, to answer be-
fore the great tribunal of all mankind, for his excesses, his
bigotry, and his rash swearing.

The Catholics of England felt the influence of the Asso-

* A metrical travestie of this '-speech presumptive," appeared in
one of the London morning papers, and has been invariably ascribed
to the pen of Moore. The following is a sample of this amusing
satire : —

" Though Mr. Leslie Foster winced,

From what he once asserted ;
Though Mr. Brownlow is convinced,

And Mr. North converted ;
Though even country gentlemen

Are sick of half their maggots,
And rustics mock the vicar, when

He prates of fiery fagots ;
Though Hume and Brougham and twenty more,

Are swaggering and swearing.
And Scarlett hopes the scarlet whore

"Will not be found past bearing ;
Though Reverend Norwich does not mind

The feuds of two and seven,
And trusts that humble prayers may find

A dozen roads to heaven ; —
Till royal heads are lit with gas,

Till Hebrews dine on pork, —
My lords, this bill shall never pass j

So help me God ! "—Said Ycdlc.

82

ciation, and assumed a more decided attitude than before, in
their demands for redress. On the 25th of February, 1825,
was held an immense meeting, at the Freemasons' Tavern,
London ; his Grace the Earl Marshal of England, in the
chair. At that meeting the genius of both isles was blended,
and the spirits of the common sufferers flowed in sorrowful
and indignant union, through all the proceedings. Messrs.
Stourton, Blount, and the chairman, represented one land,
and the twin-brethren of Ireland's embattled hosts were
there. Mr. O'Connell's speech was, as all his speeches
are, a wonderful mixture of all sorts of style, from the most
lofty to the most plain ; he was by turns, speaking to the
olden chivalry of the land, in terms courtly and polished ;
but, far oftener forgetting their presence, he flung his burn-
ing words, rough-hewn, amongst the masses of his auditory,
lashing them into the most uncontrollable excitement. He
was in the capital of England, with her nobles and her
citizens around him, and not a few of his own humble
countrymen, who, to escape the petty tyrants of a province,
had fled to the refuge of the capital of misrule.

In such a position, with such an audience, his creed and
his country the subjects, Mr. O'Connell was truly impres-
sive and masterly. When he had concluded, Mr. Shiel
was called upon by the vast assembly, and with nervous
haste he stepped forward. The place and the scene had its
influence upon him in like manner — it brought back his
musings at Stonyhenge, his rambles through romance, and
in the mazes of dramatic history. He saw the Talbot, the
Percy, and the Clifford, before him — the great pillars of the
old name of England — and his heart beat time to the fairy
dance of his imagination, as he said to himself, I will plant
these fallen columns upon their bases again — I will raise
them up from the dust — I will tear the cobwebs from their
family escutcheons, and unbolt the parliament their fathers
created, to these, their sons. It was a proud thought, and
inspiring ; but it was less patriotic than that of O'Connell,
who could see in these coronets nothing better than em-
blems, of themselves worthless, but which shed some tinge
of nobility on his cause. The different inspirations which
they drew from the same cause were fair exemplars of each
man's mental character. This meeting and one or two
others during this year, greatly advanced the cause in
England ; several new accessions to its ranks occurred ;

83

amongst the rest Mr. Horton, M. P., for Newcastle-on-
Tyne, and other gentlemen of fortune and good family.

In 1826, the Association resolved to try its strength with
the ascendancy party in Ireland. The people had been
trained — the treasury was full — illegal combinations were
almost extinct — the public awaited some new step, and the
Catholics of Ireland resolved to take a bold and decisive
one.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

General Election, of 1826. — The Association resolves to con-
test Waterford, Louth, and Monaghan. — The Result. —
Triumphs of the Catholics in England. — Publications. —
The Press. — Death of Edioard Hay, Esc. — William
Cobbett. — Controversy of the *^ Wings. ^^

Amongst the families de\^oted to the " Protestant Ascen-
dancy" interest, the Beresfords, in the south of Ireland,
and the Fosters, in the north, were of the most wealthy,
ardent, and prominent. These houses were radically aris-
tocratic, from very different causes. The latter was of
comparatively ancient origin — dating backwards to the days
of Cromwell, and some say earlier; they had been, for a
century, the dictators of their locality ; and long accustomed
to undisturbed authority and the exercise of extensive pat-
ronage, both civil and ecclesiastical, they had gradually
persuaded themselves to believe that their absolute power
was, of divine right, hereditary.

The origin of the Beresfords was somewhat different,
and less remote. In the year 175-, the first of the family
came over to Ireland, as a subaltern in an infantry regi-
ment. In a ball-room, at Waterford, he met with Catharine,
dowager-countess of Tyrone ; a lady advanced in life, but
possessed of many a broad acre of dowry, in various parts
of the island. The subaltern was athletic and courteous,
and with the manor of Curraghmore in perspective, saw in

84

the noble bereaved the perfection of her sex. After a brief
courtship a marriage was the consequence, and by that
means was entailed upon Ireland, one of the most ruthless
and brutal races of her provincial tyrants. The marquisate
dates from 1787. In the memorable era of 1798, the name
of Beresford acquired a murderous celebrity amongst the
enemies of the people. John Claudius Beresford (whose
Roman patronyme reminds us of Macauley's fine expres-
sion, in one of his immortal lays of ancient Rome —

" There never yet was Claudius, that did not wish the Commons ill " — )

was particularly active in that era of treachery and blood-
shed. He was a secretary to one of the first Orange Asso-
ciations ever organized in Ireland — which were merely the
continuation of other anti-national secret societies. Of this
particular society, Thomas Verner was Grand Master. Nor
was the disinterestedness of this family very conspicuous ;
among the items which made up the enormous " secret
service money" expenditure of that period, we find the
following : ^ —

July 4, 179S— J. C. Beresford, - - - £50 00 00

April 8, 1802 — J. C. Beresford, amount of
money expended for the government,
between 1798 and 1802, - - - - £470 11 8^
And in another place we find,

Feb. 25, 1802— Marquis of Waterford, £162 00 00

March 15, 1798,— do. do. - - - £70 00 00

The name of this illustrious family is also connected with
a highly original invention, that of converting a riding-
school, in Dublin, into a house of torture, in which scenes
were enacted, almost beyond the power of credulity to be-
lieve. In this earth-hell, poor, naked wretches, the tender
youth as well as the decrepid grandsire, and even women
themselves, were scourged by the orders of these " private
gentlemen," who often regaled their friends with the odious
spectacle, and took occasionally an amature hand at the
cat-o'-nine-tails. Having so figured in the prologue, it was
natural to find them, towards the denouement of that drama,

* For these and other extraordinary facts, see Madden, Appendix,
2d vol. United Irishmen, where it is shown that nobles, bishops, and
even " patriots," were hirelings of the Castle.

85

which, like most of our modern novels, commenced in a
quarrel, and ended in " a union." We find three of the
Beresfords voting for the legislative union, in the last Irish
House of Commons, and for this exertion of loyalty, they
were again most richly recompensed, and at the expense of
the nation.

Such were the two tyrant tribes against which, in 1826,
the Catholic Association entered the lists, as the champion
of the people. Both had been enriched by the division of
the booty consequent upon the capture of Ireland's constitu-
tion ; both had displayed their loyalty unmercifully austere
in the disastrous scenes of '98 ; both had many church liv-
ings at their bestowal ; both held local commands, and took
precedent in all political displays — addresses to majesty, et-
cetera, which might originate in their respective provinces
Both were wealthy, imperious and revengeful.

Against such influence the Association could only array
the integrity of the yeomanry of Louth and Waterford, and
the eloquence of the orators of the Corn Exchange. It was
hard to call upon the people to stand out boldly against their
unforgiving landlords. The friends of emancipation felt
that it was so. but the trial must be made. The chances of
certain defeat deeply impressed the minds of the most cour-
ageous, yet the Association felt that the anxiety of all its
friends required some brilliant exploit, and boldly overlook-
ing the difficulty, they saw nothing but glory beyond it.

Lord George Beresford, on the dissolution of parlia-
ment, was nominated for the representation of Waterford,
and on his behalf was exerted all the interest of his family, as
well as that of the Duke of Devonshire, and other extensive
landholders of the county. The candidate of the Associa-
tion was Mr. Villiers Stuart, by birth a Scotchman, pos-
sessed of some property in Waterford, and of well-known
pro-Catholic partialities. When the determination of the
Catholics to contest the county became known, the greatest
activity pervaded their friends and their opponents. The
Beresfords published a sullen and unyieldingly " Protestant "
address ; Mr. Stuart announced himself in a manly and
modest appeal to the electors ; the Association sent down
its best and ablest members, to arrange all preliminaries
with the local agitators ; the priesthood openly espoused,
and rigorously advocated the claims of " Stuart and eman-
cipation," and many were the startling scenes which oc-
S

86

curred between the enthusiastic Soggartk^ and his sorely
pressed parishioners. The tory candidate, on the other
hand, had active canvassers in the field, offering money to
some, leases to otliers, and inducements to all. It was a
trial of fearful importance to the character of the people, as
well as to the success of their cause. Everything that could
seduce, tempt or terrify, was brought to bear upon the un-
fortunate tenantry of the unscrupulous conservatives.

The day for action at length arrived, and the master
spirit, O'Connell, appeared in person on the hustings. The
masses of the population had pledged themselves against all
intoxicating liquors ; they had also taken a solemn and de-
liberate pledge not to violate the peace, no matter what
insults they might receive. Both these pledges they kept
with unscrupulous fidelity. The strongest man might have
been spat upon by a liveried manikin, and not a word of
reproof would he utter, nor a finger be raised to avenge it.
The reception of O'Connell augured well for the success of
his experiment, and accordingly, Mr. Stuart was elected by
an overwhelming majority.

The fate of the Beresfords was merely a prototype of that
which awaited the Fosters. In Louth, Lord Oriel and Lord
Roden were the chief patrons of the county, and Mr. Les-
lie Foster and Mr. Fortescue were their candidates. On
their part the emancipationists induced Mr. Dawson, a re-
tired barrister, to stand forth in the breach, to bear the brunt
of as heavy a contest, as ever, perhaps, occurred since or
before. Here again the genius of Ireland, and the high-
toned sense of honor indigenous of her noble peasantry,
triumphed over coronets and wealth, and the blandishments
of an aroused and unscrupulous aristocracy.

Simultaneous with the elections of Waterford and Louth,
where the genius of emancipation, in the persons of O'Con-
nell and Shiel, had prostrated Protestant ascendancy, was
that of Monaghan, in which the ill-fated and gifted Brie,
after displaying abilities and judgment inferior to neither,
beheld the cause of the people crowned with similar success,
in the return of Westenra. This triple triumph was a
heavy blessing for the Association to bear, but they were
equal to the plenitude of their suddenly-acquired laurels.
The brightness of their triumph did not blind them to the

* Anglice — Priest.

87

difficulty of making the best use of it — nor the glory won
by their agents content them, while unaccompanied b^
substantial benefits. They resolved to husband up their
energies — to bear their triumphs quietly — to treat their
opponents forbearingly — and, in short, to lose no time in
following up the vantage blow they had struck at the hoary
head and iron sceptre of Intolerance.

These memorable elections caused, at the period of their
occurrence, an intense excitement amongst men of all classes
in the empire, and were watched to the issue, with feelings
of mournful forethought, by the advocates of the old regime.
The aristocracy drew closer to each other, from a sense of
impending danger, and allied by their fears, looked with
awe and silent bitterness at the progress of the people.
The popular cause no longer crept like a snail upon its
path, but bounded like an eager steed, straining for an im-
perishable prize. A sudden conscience struck the souls of
the ascendancy party, that their days were not to be pro-
longed upon the earth ; yet, consistent to the last, they
swore rather to perish than concede. The Marquis of
Waterford, after desolating his extensive estates, by a whole-
sale ejection of his courageous tenantry, vowed an eternal
hostile farewell to the land, on which his father had landed
a beggar ; but while on his way to the Continent, was over-
taken with a mortal illness at an obscure village in Wales.
He who had made so many homeless, thus closed his own
eyes in a strange country — unwept, unwatched, and un-
prepared.

The same period, in which took place the events we have
tried to chronicle, was also remarkable for indications of
growing liberality in the choice of representatives at the
English elections. At a meeting of the British Catholic
Association, held immediately after the issue of the general
election of 1826, on the 26th day of July, Edward Blount,
the secretary of that body, a most influential and able agi-
tator, said : — " Our opponents had directed all their efforts
to influence the public mind against us, and had vainly
imagined, that under the delusion of an unprincipled war-
whoop, the voice of justice, honor, humanity, and liberality
would have been extinguished. They reckoned without
their host. In the whole range of the country, hardly a
solitary instance, to their immortal honor be it spoken, can
be discovered, where this appeal to prejudice and passion

88

has been successful." In the same address, Mr. Blount
stated that three hundred thousand documents of various
sizes had been circulated by the British Catholic Association.
If to this we were to add the innumerable tracts, speeches,
sermons, and pamphlets from the press of the Catholic Asso-
ciation, we would find a vast, an almost unprecedented
amount of research and argument arrayed on the side of
religious liberty.

While on this view of the subject, we cannot fail to no-
tice the pre-eminent zeal with which the Irish metropolitan
press followed up each new success of the people, stimulat-
ing and supporting them to even higher victories. The
Register, then conducted by Mr. Stanton ; the Freeman's
Journal, originally established by the no less famous than
able Dr. Lucas ; and the Evening Post, edited by Mr.
Frederick Conway, led the van of the metropolitan Irish
press. Nor was the provincial press inferior in spirit or in
watchfulness, to their more fortunately located co-laborers ;
in every national sheet, the most ardent zeal appeared, and
often clothed in language equally pertinent and classical.

Few stimulants are more useful to the purification of the
press, than the zest which extensive legislative changes
gives to political controversy. In such seasons, the minds
capable of thinking and reasoning, are taxed to their ut-
most ; they descend to the sources of government and of
law ; the origin of social wrongs, and the false construction
of society, are revealed to them, even as the pearl-diver in
his vocation marks the formation of worthless weeds, and
explores the haunts of monstrous creatures. In such a time
it is easy to distinguish who possesses the metal of true
genius, and who the sounding brass.

In October of this year, died Mr. Edward Hay, of Bal-
linkeel, county of Wexford, best known as the historian of
the insurrection of 1798, in his native country, and for many
years secretary to the Catholics of Ireland. Mr. Hay was
a gentleman in the most liberal sense — as much from the
respectability of his family, and of his own life, as from
public spirit and a strict personal regard for integrity of
conduct. His family were prominent in the first shoal of
Norman invaders who swarmed along the south-eastern
coast of Ireland in the days of the second Henry, skulking
into patrimonies on the banks of the Slaney, the Barrow,
and the Suire. They were originally men of larg'e landed

89

possessions ; but their descendants, by preserving their
creed, sacrificed their estates. Notwithstanding, the father
of Mr. Hay was considered a weahhy man ; he is remem-
bered in that neighborhood as an inveterate duellist and
sportsman ; and many a haughty, bigoted 'squire has suf-
fered his nose to be plucked, rather than measure swords
with old Hay. His son, in 1792, was one of the Catholic
delegates who, with John Keogh, of Mount Jerome, laid the
complaints of their brethren at the foot of the throne — and
this, against the express wishes of his father, who disinher-
ited him for his patriotism. A few thousands, how^ever,
were left him in his own right ; but of this he was also de-
prived by the unnatural litigation of his brother. Major Hay.
In 1798, Mr. Hay took an active part in the ill-advised
rising of the peasantry of his native county, of which he has
given a modest and accurate account in his patriotic and
trustworthy history of that unfortunate insurrection. In the
general ruin which followed that desperate strife of the
unarmed people with their long-prepared rulers, Mr. Hay
would have undoubtedly been a partner, were it not for the
representations of Lord Kingsboro' and other officers of
high rank who had served in Wexford, who were not for-
getful of his humanity in their days of danger, and of his
incessant efforts to prevent the cruelties of the justly exas-
perated peasantry. Of Mr. Hay's public life we find nothing
on record, subsequent to the publication of his " Narrative
of the Insurrection in Wexford," until his appearance at the
Catholic Board meetings in the capacity of secretary. For
the few years preceding his death, he had retired from that
position, on account of some difference with Mr. O'Connell,
to whom he never afterwards could be reconciled. Like
many another able and honest man, he died not worth a
shilling, leaving but his poverty to his numerous family,
and that carriage of blended dignity and gentleness, which
gives a sanctity to misfortune, and renders even rags
respectable.

Their victories, in 1826, filled the hearts of the emanci-
pationists with new strength, and accelerated the final
triumph of that measure. But there was one obstacle, and
a formidable one, a great cause for intestine dissensions — I
mean the well-known controversy relative to the " wings"
already mentioned in connection with the name of Coun-
sellor Brie. The chief advocates of emancipation were at
8^

90

variance on this subject, and each contended for the adop-
tion of his own particular views. Mr. O'Connell was for
recognizing the freehold wing, but opposed the clerical
wing ; Mr. Lawless ably and incessantly decried the free-
hold wing, which was the abolition of the forty-shilling
qualification. Several titled leaders, and many liberal
Protestants, were in favor of pensioning the Catholic
clergy; while the immortal J. K. L., and the scarcely less
gifted Dr. Mac Hale, courageously opposed their own ag-
grandizement, at the expense of their laity and church.
The wings were likely to kill the entire measure, by the
sources of difference they carried with them ; and Parlia-
ment knew not for a time, nor cared to know, w^hose
opinion to take, as the foundation of a satisfactory act.

Foremost in this most interesting controversy, stood a
sturdy form, possessing a mind, shrewd, vigilant and logical,
of unvarnished speech, and matchless determination. To
talents of a simple class, unbedecked by study, but clarified
in the philosophic sedateness of his tastes, William Cobbett
added a daring at once novel and prudent, in his contests
with the ascendant bigotry and toryism of England. His
many public acts and writings form consecutive links be
tween those singular circumstances through which, without
any personal consistency, he transformed himself from a
private in an infantry regiment, into a member of Parlia-
ment for the town of Oldham. Born in the humblest circle
of plebeian life, in the county of Hampshire, and bred a
common soldier, he found himself master of some knowl-
edge, of vast penetration, and a thoroughly English style
of composition. In his regiment he was remarkable for
great studiousness of disposition ; and during the many
long nights he passed in the provincial garrisons of North
America, whether on the sentinel's walk or in his quarters,
his active mind was never idle. In one of his officers, as
he himself informs us, (the renowned and chivalric Lord
Edward Fitzgerald,) he found a friend and patron, who
could appreciate his acquirements, and who readily assisted
in bettering his fortunes. On the return of their regiment
from the North American service to England, Lord Edward
immediately procured his release from the army. At this
time he possessed a young wife, whom he had wooed in his
own original manner, and a small sum of money, the sav-
ings of his scanty hire. After spending some months in

91

England, he started his Register, devoted to the interests
of the working classes, the emancipation of Catholics, the
abolition of tithes and large banking institutions, and the
attainment of a reform in Parliament.

The novelty of his style ; the bold prudence of his de-
clamation ; his hostility to the church establishment ; and
his contempt for the aristocracy, drew him speedily into
notice. One or two libel suits furthered his notoriety, and
in a few years his paper became really formidable. It was
his great ambition to be considered " the man of the
people," and to this end he endeavored to interweave his
name with their most domestic concerns ; he wrote " Cot-
tage Economies," works on gardening, "Advice to Young
Men," and sermons against tithes, usury, etc. These
works were issued chiefly in six-penny numbers, and from
their point, simplicity, and sound sense, became immense
favorites with the people of England. His writings speed-
ily crossed the channel, until his "History of the English
' Reformation,' " and his " Life of General Andrew Jack-
son," established his fame and his Register in Ireland.

At the period to which we have arrived, the tide of
Catholic agitation was at its full ; and of all the names it
bore along, none, save O'Connell's, bore, for the time, a
prouder front than that of William Cobbett. But he yielded
too much to popularity, and was swept away in its turbid
current. He took a firm stand against both wings, and put
forth all his energies against their adoption by the Catholics.
The forty-shilling freeholders, the trades union, and Mr.
Lawless greeted his accession to their views with joy, while
the clergy were no less pleased with his homespun denun-
ciations of those who sought to bribe them into indolence,
and thus to insure their dependence on the will of the gov-
ernment. For a time, O'Connell's fame seemed to vibrate ;
Cobbett saw its crisis at hand, and unwisely poured forth a
torrent of bitter personalities, which effectually injured his
own reputation, and re-acted powerfully in favor of his
adversary. When, too late, he saw the errors he had com-
mitted, his exasperation prevented his making any atone-
ment, and he madly persevered in his ferocious libels on
the great leader and his most devoted disciples. Yet the
honesty of his intentions was not then doubted by the ma-
jority of the Catholics, and their unsuspecting dispositions
saved him from utter disrepute.

92

Cobbett was a useful and remarkable man, but by no
means possessed of the lineaments of greatness. To those
who differed from him in detail, he was as hostile, and often
more hostile, than to those who opposed totally the ques-
tions he espoused. He hated O'Connell in his soul —
which was a mark of unquestionable littleness. A pine
may flourish bravely in the shadow of an oak ; and so can
true greatness grow in the shadow of a superior nature.
Cobbett could no more have been O'Connell, than O'Connell
could have been Cobbett. Their natures were essentially
different — their powers and capabilities were dissimilar;
and in forgetting this truth, Cobbett unmade his own char-
acter. He was not born to be the tribune of the people ;
he was not a " thinking machine on two legs." Had he
sedulously and consistently followed the example of Swift,
he might have left behind productions as nearly equal to
the Draper's Letters, as the masterpiece of the Roman
poet is to its prototype, the Iliad. He had the humor, the
courage, the experience, and the language, with a much
greater theme than the manufacture of woollens, upon which
to establish a political fame akin to Swift's. The Archi-
medean point for him was his closet ; his pen, and not his
voice, should have been his lever.

Cobbett was an inconsistent and unsteady public man.
In every pursuit he seemed more in earnest than he really
was. His views of the Catholic religion, at various periods
of his life, will illustrate this assertion. Thus, in his letter
to Pope Pius, dated Nov. 8th, 1828, he rebukes Dr. Doyle
for not showing sufficient respect to the sovereign Pontiff.
" Dr. Doyle," he says, " has not confined his labors in this
way to works from the press, but has, in evidence given by
him before the houses of Parliament, spoken in the most
light, not to say contemptuous, manner of the influence and
authority of the Pope relative to the Catholic Church."
Yet in his Register for February 11th, 1815, we find the
very same pen writing down this sentiment in relation to
Joachim Murat, king of Naples : — " With regard to what
is said of Joachim's designs against the Pope, nothing has
appeared in a shape sufficiently authentic to enable me to
form a correct opinion, though I should be well pleased to
hear that the temporal, as well as the spiritual power of his
Holiness, had received an irrecoverable blow." Neverthe-
less, when he heard that his " Reformation" had been men-

93

tioned with praise at Rome, lie forthwith addressed a familiar
and respectful letter to his Holiness, leaving this and other
like opinions unretracted, before the public. He was, more-
over, by turns the libeller and the flatterer of individuals
and states ; his praise and censure were equally unqualified
in relation to America and Ireland; his attacks on O'Con-
nell, Burdett, Grattan, and other eminent public men, were
modified according- to the degree of attention which they
gave them. In all his definitions of character — -in all his
religious and political essays, he attacked principles because
their defenders were his enemies, and seemingly from no
higher motive ; thus the sins of a blunt advocate were
visited upon his cause, howsoever pure and unimpeachable
it might be. He lived an agitator without principle him-
self, while he could not bear coadjutors more honest ; he
advocated Catholicism against all the charges brought by
the church of his own country, yet he had not the strength
or sincerity to adopt its doctrines, while he censured others
severely for having cast them off.

But we must not imao-ine that this unbroken and insin-
cere spirit was without its better moods, or that its great
energies were expended without effect.

Self-interest, the circumstances of his birth, his defective
education, and the popular bias of his mind, gave to Cob-
bet's career a sort of consistency which though it did not
spring from motives of conscience, rendered his middle age
formidable on account of his past triumphs. His egotism
or ambition was of so towering a nature as to look down
upon, rather than up to, aristocracy ; and sneering on the
many lords who were sovereign in their own petty circles,
he resolved to be lord of all the land, moving its lower
strata, and thereby shaking even the throne if necessary.
The dictatorial tone of his Register would never have been
tolerated in any other newspaper writer; but one, who, while
he dared thus speak to the people, used the same style in
his epistles to the king, to the Hartford conventionists, to
Bonaparte, to Louis of France, to the Pope, seemed priv-
ileged to be unceremonious. His consistent and habitual
courage led him to oppose the last American war, and to
denounce the Conofress of Vienna; he wrote a book and
published it in praise of General Jackson, while yet the
beaten troops of Packenham lived and told their tale of shame
around him ; and he eulogized Bonaparte at the very mo-

94

meat lie was in open arms against England. Such a man,
although intolerant of the superior popularity of his coadju-
tors, was yet a man for the multitude, in the feverish and
partially-awakened state in which the French Revolution left
the less than half-educated masses of the British islands.
They were attracted by his fearlessness, they were charmed
with his theories, they echoed his oracular decisions, and
became accessory to the fulfilment of his prophecies. There
was more strength in his pen than all the reviewers of the
land could muster, and his facts were as inexhaustible as
his logic was vivid. In short, he was a man who, without
the aid of principles, did much for the lower ranks of Eng-
land— much for the dissemination of historic truth and polit-
ical knowledge, and who gave to others what he did not
himself possess, — firmness of purpose, and a consistent
eagerness for social amelioration, and parliamentary reform.
He lived to see the fulfilment of many of his desires — to sit
in the senate of his native land, and to fill a place in her
literature. A more disinterested spirit could not have been
more amply rewarded, while many such have fared much
worse after undergoing harder public novitiates.

Cobbett's accession to the formidable opposition to the
wings, but gave renewed energy to O'Connell ; he saw that
the forty-shilling freeholders should be disfranchised to
carry the greater measure of emancipation. He argued that
there was no great gain without some sacrifice ; that to
save the land from a civil war, and religion from a new
persecution, it were better to allow this wing to be affixed
to the bill, while at the same time he firmly refused to
sanction or connive at the project of pensioning the clergy.
His genius and the necessity of the time succeeded, and the
forty shilling freeholders were disfranchised accordingly,
and the long-delayed measure was carried.

9S

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. — O^Connell is
nominated for the Representation of Clare. — The first
Clare election. — Mr. Steel. — O^GorTnan Mahon and Fa-
ther Maguire. — Passage of the Emancipation Act. —
O^Connell in St. Stephens. — He is refused a seat under
the new Act.

The general election of 1S26 had placed in the councils of
the nation many gentlemen favorable to the liberation of the
Catholic body, to a certain extent, although the number of
thorough-going emancipators Avas very limited. One tri-
umph, however, it gave to the cause, in the repeal of the
odious corporation and test acts, for which the year 1827 is
chiefly remarkable in the annals of the Catholic question.
To the English whigs the merit of first moving in this matter
is justly due : Lord John Russell being the author of the mo-
tion. It is fair also to add that several tory members, in-
cluding the Duke of Wellington, without whose aid it could
not then have passed into law, supported the bill. The
present Earl of Shrewsbury had written a very able little
book, styled " Reasons for not taking the Test," which had
its share in this result ; while Mr. Brougham, Sir Francis
Burdett, and the radical reformers, to a man, stood by it and
voted for it from the first.

It was in consequence of the part he took in effecting the
repeal of these acts, and as some say, at the suggestion of
Lord John Russell,"^ that Mr. O'Connell moved, in the As-
sociation, to rescind a resolution binding that body to oppose
the election of all candidates for Irish seats in Parliament
who refused to pledge themselves against the Duke of Wel-
lington's administration. In this he providentially failed,
and that failure was a chief cause of his own election for
Clare.

On the meeting of Parliament in 1828, it was announced

* Firfe Huish) p. 434.

96

that Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, one of the sitting members for
Clare, had been raised to a seat in the new cabinet, which
occasioned a vacancy in the representation of that county.
A new writ was issued accordingly, and Mr. Fitzgerald, as
a ministerialist, resolved to contest any candidate who might
be brought forward by the Catholic Association. Descended
of a good family, of great personal popularity, large fortune,
and respectable talents, he came into the field with many
advantages. His father had filled the office of Prime Ser-
geant at the Irish bar for many years, an office in which he
had been preceded by Malone, and other illustrious jurists.
He was a member of the last Irish Parliament, and an ac-
tive opponent of the Union ; his son, therefore, could not
be an object of dislike to the generous electors of Clare.
Mr. Fitzgerald had employed his ministerial influence for
the benefit of many in his native country, for which he
really entertained a sort of patriotic affection. It may readily
be imagined that the defeat of such a man was a very dif-
ferent, and much more difficult task, than the overthrow of
a Foster or a Beresford.

In virtue of their anti-ministerial pledge, the Association
chose an opposition candidate, and their choice fell upon
Major McNamara, a gentleman of better family than for-
tune, who had been O'Connell's second, in the duel with
D'Esterre, and withal was popular in Clare. He had no
pretensions to ability, except in settling affairs of honor, and
the highest flight of his ambition was to clear handsomely
a five-barred gate. He was now beyond life's half-way
house, a portly and courteous country gentleman, much
respected by his acquaintance, and honored by the humbler
classes. He was known to have strong pro-Catholic feel-
ings, although a Protestant, and was, in short, the only man
the Association could reckon upon as a candidate. Mr.
O 'Gorman Mahon was despatched to acquaint him with
the fact of his nomination, and after an absence of two
days, returned to Dublin with the astounding intelligence,
that Major McNamara's obligations to Mr. Fitzgerald were
such as to prevent him, " in honor, from running in opposi-
tion to that gentleman." The receipt of this news caused
the Association the deepest vexation, which was further
increased on learning that Dean O'Shaugnessy, an influen-
tial clergyman of Ennis, and a relative of Mr. Fitzgerald,
was supposed to be favorable to his election. "Without the

97

co-operation of all the clergy, the Association felt the con-
test would be fruitless, and without Dean O'Shaugnessy's
aid, such co-operation could hardly be attained. Having
announced their intention of opposing Mr. Fitzgerald's re-
turn, and having refused to drop the anti-ministerial pledge,
the Associates felt obliged to proceed, but were completely
at a loss for a nominee. There was no one found anxious
to be a member of Parliament. In this dilemma, a lucky
thought of O 'Gorman Mahon saved the character of the
Association, and insured the speedy passage of the long-
sought-for act. He proposed to Mr. O'Connell, and after-
wards to the Association, that O'Connell should become the
candidate of the Association, and if elected, should in his
person seek to establish the right of Catholics to seats in
Parliament. It was a bold and happy thought, as the
sequel will show. The Association adopted, viva voce, the
motion ; and the whole empire was astonished by the pub-
lication of the following address to the electors, promptly
issued by O'Connell : —

"TO THE ELECTORS OF THE COUNTY OF CLARE.

" Dublin, June, 1828.
" Fellow-Countrymen, —

" Your county wants a representative. I respectfully
solicit your suffrages, to raise me to that station.

" Of my qualification to fill that station, I leave you to
judge. The habits of public speaking, and many, many
years of public business, render me, perhaps, equally suited
w^ith most men to attend to the interests of Ireland in Par-
liament.

" You will be told I am not qualified to be elected ; the
assertion, my friends, is untrue. — I am qualified to be
elected, and to be your representative. It is true that as a
Catholic, I cannot, and of course never will, take the oaths
at present prescribed to members of Parliament; but the
authority which created these oaths, (the Parliament,) can
abrogate them : and I entertain a confident hope that, if
you elect me, the most bigoted of our enemies will see the
necessity of removing from the chosen representative of the
people, "an obstacle which would prevent him from doing
his duty to his king and to his country.

<' The oath at present required by law is, * that the sacrifice
9

98

of the mass, and the invocation of the blessed Virgin Mary,
and other saints, as now practised in the church of Rome,
are impious and idolatrous.' Of course I will never stain
my soul with such an oath : I leave that to my honorable
opponent, !Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald ; he has often taken that
horrible oath ; he is ready to take it again, and asks your
votes to enable him so to swear. I would rather be torn limb
from limb than take it. Electors of the county of Clare !
choose between me, who abominates that oath, and Mr.
Vesey Fitzgerald, who has sworn it full twenty times !
Return me to ParUament, and it is probable that such a
blasphemous oath will be abolished forever. As your
representative, I will try the question with the friends in
ParHament of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. — They may send me
to prison. — I am ready to go there to promote the cause of
the Catholics, and of universal liberty. The discussion
which the attempt to exclude your representative from the
House of Commons must excite, will create a sensation all
over Europe, and produce such a burst of contemptuous
indisTiation against British bi^otn', in ever\' enlio^htened
country in the world, that the voice of all the great and
good in England, Scotland, and Ireland, being joined to the
universal shout of the nations of the earth, will overpower
even'^ opposition, and render it impossible for Peel and
Wellington any longer to close the doors of the constitution
against the Catholics of Ireland.

" Electors of the county of Clare ; ^Ir. Vesey Fitzgerald
claims as his only merit, that he is a friend to the Catho-
lics— ^why, I am a Catholic myself; and if he be sincerely
our friend, let him vote for me, and raise before the British
empire the Catholic question in my humble person, in the
way most propitious to my final success. But no, fellow-
countn-men, no ; he will make no sacrifice to that cause ;
he will call himself your friend, and act the part of your
worst and most unrelentine enemy.

" I do not Hke to give the epitome of his political life ;
yet, when the present occasion so loudly calls for it, I cannot
refrain. He took ofRce under Perceval, — ^under that Perce-
val who obtained power by raisings the base, bloody, and
unchristian cry- of ' Xo Poper}- ,* in England.

" He had the nomination of a member to serve for the
borough of Ennis. He nominated Mr. Spencer Perceval,
then a decided opponent of the CathoHcs.

99

" He voted on the East Retford bill, for a measure that
would put two virulent enemies of the Catholics into Par-
liament.

" In the case of the Protestant Dissenters in England, he
voted for their exclusion, that is, against the principle of the
freedom of conscience ; — that sacred principle which the
Catholics of Ireland have ever cultivated and cherished, on
which we framed our rights to emancipation.

" Finally, he voted for the suppression of the Catholic
Association of Ireland.

" And, after this, sacred Heaven ! he calls himself a friend
to the Catholics.

" He is the allv and coUeaarue of the Duke of Welling-ton
and Mr. Peel ; he is their partner in power ; they are, you
know, the most bitter, persevering, and unmitigated enemies
of the Catholics ; and, after all this, he, the partner of our
bitterest and unrelenting enemies, calls himself the friend
of the Catholics of Ireland.

" Having thus traced a few of the demerits of my right
honourable opponent, what shall I say for myself?

" I appeal to my past life for my unremitting and disin-
terested attachment to the religion and liberties of CathoHc
Ireland.

" If you return me to Parliament, I pledge myself to vote
for every measure favorable to radical reform in the repre-
sentative svstem, so that the House of Commons may truly,
as our Catholic ancestors intended it should do, represent
all the people.

" To vote for the repeal of the Vestry bill, the sub-letting
act, and the Grand Jury laws.

" To vote for the diminution and more equal distribution
of the overgro^^Tl wealth of the established church in Ireland,
so that the surplus may be restored to the sustentation of
tlie poor, the aged, and the infirm.

" To vote for every measure of retrenchment and reduction
of the national expenditure, so as to relieve the people from
the burdens of taxation, and to bring the question of the
repeal of the Union, at the earliest possible period, before
the consideration of the legislature.

" Electors of the county of Clare I choose between me and
Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald ; choose bet^veen him who has so
long cultivated his ow^l interest, and one who seeks only to
ad\'ance ^'ours: choose between tlie s\Mjrn libeller of the

100

Catholic faith, and one who has devoted his early life to
your cause ; who has consumed his manhood in a struggle
for your liberties, and who has ever lived, and is ready to
die for the integrity, the honor, the purity, of the Catholic
faith, and the promotion of Irish freedom and happiness.

" Your faithful servant,

"Daniel O'Connell."

It is impossible adequately to conceive the enthusiasm
caused by this resolution amongst those to whom it was
thus announced. The friends of Mr. Fitzgerald could
scarcely believe it to be the serious intention of the Asso-
ciation, until the arrival of Messrs. Steele and O'Gorman
Mahon, as precursors of the coming of the great agitator,
aroused them to the necessity of using every exertion within
their means.

The names of these gentlemen being historically asso-
ciated with that of a most interesting period of O'Connell's
life, a digression explanatory of their standing and charac-
ter, may not be out of place, ere we meet the " Liberator"
on the hustings. Both yet live — but alas ! how sundered
and how separated. Steele is found by the side of his
leader and companion, while Mahon, fallen from his high

estate, is . Both, however, must be sketched upon

our canvass ; less fully, to be sure, than they deserve, but
faithful at least even in outline.

Mr. Thomas Steele is by birth a native of Clare. His
family are of some antiquity in that county, and of highly
respectable fortune. He was born heir to an extensive and
.valuable property, which he has spent to the last farthing
upon scientific experiments, and in patriotic adventures.
His education was commenced in Trinity College, where
he obtained the degree of B. A., and advocated Catholic
Emancipation. From thence he went to Cambridge and
entered Magdalen College. A characteristic anecdote is
related of the manner in which he decided between the
relative advantages of studying at Oxford, and on the
Cam. Having arrived in London without deciding on this
point, he sat one evening at the door of his hotel in Holborn,
and seeing a stage-coach, marked " Cambridge " pass by, he
called to the driver, ordered his trunk, and jumped into the
vehicle. Here, he could more congenially, than in " Old
Trinity," devote his time to his favorite mathematical

101

studies. He left this university with the degree of M. A., ac-
companied by the friendship of its most illustrious inmates.

Returning to Ireland, the possessor of a comfortable for-
tune, he had resolved not to adopt any profession. The first
evidence of his aspirations for fame on record, was his dar-
ing conduct in the melee of the Trocadero. With Sir Robert
Wilson, and other enthusiastic Irishmen, he had entered all
soul into the Spanish struggle for independence, which
occupied the years of 1820 — 3. From the resources of his
private fortune, he had often drawn liberally for the sup-
port of the public cause, and on abandoning that desperate
enterprise, he found himself surrounded by so many fellow-
sufferers, that he heavily mortgaged his property to allevi-
ate their distresses. The knavery of a young lawyer, his
relative, whom he had placed as agent over his estates, still
further involved him in debt, and it was with little surprise
that, a short time since, those who knew his personal history,
heard of his having availed himself of the provisions of the
" insolvent act." It must have been a hard struggle that
reduced him to such extremity ; even the Commissioner
who presided, bore willing testimony to his honorable char-
acter, and declared him stainless from the ordeal.

Mr. Steele's scientific reputation stands deservedly high ;
his improvements in the diving-bell, his plan for reclaiming
the mudlands and improving the navigation of his native
Shannon, as also his scheme for supplying Dublin with
water through the valley of the Liffey, are acknowledged
by all competent judges, to be highly useful and strikingly
able projects. In fortification and engineering, indeed, in
almost every branch of mathematical science, he has few, if
any, superiors in the empire.

In person, Mr. Steele has nothing of the Adonis in his
mould, but he is far from being insensible to the soft influ-
ences of the gentler sex. On this point he is perfectly
Quixotic; his "silent love" is proverbial; when smitten
with the charms of some fair Irish girl, he " never names
her, never," but lets

" Concealment, like a v^orm in the bud,

Prey upon his damask cheek."

On more than one occasion, when smitten with peculiar

adoration, he has retired to his cot amidst the hills of Wick-
9#

102

low, and hermit-like, sighed away his soul " to the listening
deer." Whehever he has occasion to mention the ladies,
he does so in language equally enthusiastic and respectful;
in a word, he seems to have been made for medioBval times,
not for ours. There is in his nature an enthusiasm so
lofty, a sincerity so sincere, a sense of honor so keen, a
delicacy and a daring so extreme, that, of him more than
any other man of the nineteenth century, may it be said, —
" we shall not look upon his like again."

But my readers must not suppose by the foregoing
sketch, that I regard Mr. Steele as an impracticable
being. So far from it, that there is no man more easily
advised, none who possesses less egotism or self-opinion.
His nice sense of principle clothes with respect and will
perpetuate his name to the latest generation of Ireland's
sons. His perpetual remembrance of his duty ; the mili-
tary devotedness with which he follows the beck of O'Con-
nell, cause him to repress his natural impetuosity, which,
under a less venerated leader, would often break forth, and
occasion mischief. It is impossible for a selfish nature to
realize what manner of man Mr. Steele is, and, alas ! how
few who are not so, have we in the nineteenth century to
appreciate his " erratic virtue," to honor his consistent and
unparalleled disinterestedness.

Of Mr. Steele's coadjutor in the canvass of Clare, Mr.
O'GoRMAN Mahon, we desire to say but little. It is one
of the most painful tasks which the pen of a genial chroni-
cler can undertake, to enumerate the early services of one
who afterwards becomes a traitor to his country and to his
own convictions. Such, unhappily, was the case with him
of whom I am now speaking. There was a time — which
can never come again — when few men stood so high in the
estimation of his country, and of all who have forfeited her
good will, few have sunk so low. Blinded by a mali-
cious anger, he has of late irrevocably stained his name
by heaping calumny on his early friend, Steele, in a court
of justice, in the moment of his humiliation. The reader
would not thank me for the details of that scene.

In 182S, O'Gorman Mahon was a young and promising
man. Of great personal grace, manly form, and undoubted
courage, he was well calculated for an efficient canvasser
in an Irish contested election. He boasts the inheritance
of undiluted Celtic blood, and no man represents more truly

103

in outward form, the beau ideal of a Milesian aristocracy, as
handed down by history and tradition, than does he. His
address is good, his language select and appropriate, yet it
were an injustice to style it eloquent. In fashionable life,
he is the idol of the ladies and the envy of the men ; he ex-
celled in aii manly accomplishments, and showeth in all his
actions that bonko?nmie so irresistible in securing the affec-
tions of an Irish peasant. When a member of the British
Parliament, he usually entered the Commons dressed in the
antiquated style of an Irish country gentleman, and attracted
no inconsiderable share of ridicule. On a certain occasion,
while sitting in a club-room adjacent to St. Stephen's, he
had the pleasure to hear himself criticised very elaborately
by a couple of fashionables at a distant table. After dissecting
" his barbarous style of dress" and swaggering carriage, one of
them undertook to wager that he must be a poltroon. This
startled his Milesian blood, and striding over to this imprudent
personage, he looked him sternly in the face for a moment,
handed him his card, and gave him the alternative of an im-
mediate challenge, or an apology on his knees before the
club. The cockney, after a good deal of hesitation, thought
the latter the better way of escaping from the dilemma.

Such, in outline, were the two men who now agitated the
constituency of Clare, from the highest to the humblest of its
members. Their zeal never tired — their bodies needed not
rest, nor their thoughts sleep ; they travelled, talked, reasoned,
appealed ; apathy disappeared at their approach, and hostility
was converted into generous co-operation. But they were
not alone in the herculean enterprise. Mr. Lawless was also
in the field, a formidable assistant ; and Mr. Ronayne,^ of
Clonmei, exerted himself arduously in haranguing the people
in their native, glorious Gaelic. In the midst of the exer-
tions of these gentlemen, there arrived in Ennis a coadjutor
of no secondary order, in the person of Father Maguire, the
priest of Ballinamore, and one of the first scholars and lo-
gicians of the age.

His fame as a controvertist had been already established
at the expense of more than one champion of Protestantism.
His famous controversy with the Rev. Alexander Pope, in.
1SS7, had been regarded by the Catholic church as a com-
plete triumph, while the Catholics of Ireland were particu-

* This gentleman is not to be confounded with his namesake,
mentioned in note, p. 74,

104

larly elated at its result. At several of their meetings, into
which this oral discussion was protracted, Mr. O'Connell
frequently acted as chairman, on behalf of Father Maguire,
and at the close declared that " a simple, unpretending
priest, from the bogs of Leitrim," had given a death-blow to
the doctrines of the established church. Armed with such
recommendations, and, perhaps, desirous to counteract the
neutrality of Dean O'Shaugnessy, Father Maguire volun-
teered to pay an electioneering visit to Clare, which was
gladly accepted of by the Catholic Association. And here,
if any cold-blooded rationalist, or sneering sectary inquires
whether this was the duty of a clergyman, in this case, I
answer him boldly that it was. We can admire those
recluses of the Peninsula, who seized the swords of the
slaughtered peasantry, to resist the influx of Gallic inva-
sion ; we admire the heroism of those Vendean ecclesias-
tics who aroused their flocks to combat against the bloody
dynasty of the llluminati, at the peril of extermination ;
our bosoms glow with admiration when we read of those
fields of death, on which millions are mowed down with a
scythe of flame, where defenceless priests walk intrepidly
through the dying and the dead, anointing with holy crism
the expiring patriot soldier. If these things be admirable,
as indeed they are to men of feeling, why should we blame
the man who, ordained to the service of God, and placed as
a sentinel over man, beholding the slavery or liberty of his
charge at hand, raises his voice or his hand to place them
beyond the influence of chains, ignorance and poverty ?
Mere party politics will defile a robe consecrated to the
altar; but there is such a thing as a sublime science in poli-
tics— a science of justice and mercy, of suffering or comfort,
life or death. The priesthood of Ireland are essentially a
popular body, by birth, disposition and inheritance; — when
they assumed holy orders, they did not cease to be sons of
Ireland, nor to feel, and think, and act for her welfare. It
was thus Dr. Doyle stamped immortality on his fame — it
was thus that Mac Hale became a consecrated name in
the Irish annals of our time — it was thus that Father Ma-
guire felt, when he arrived in Clare to co-operate for the
election of O'Connell. Nor was his visit a useless one.
His priestly character, his powerful logic, racy and plain
language, and his theological reputation gave him great ad-
vantages ; and whilst the lay canvassers merit all praise,

10§

there was, perhaps, no individual amongst them, whose
presence exercised an influence so beneficial as Father
Mag-uires. By these hands were those elements of strength,
gathered together, which, bursting from the hustings of
Ennis, broke down the policy of the Reformation, altered
the constitution of England, and gave liberty of conscience
to the Catholic millions and the dissenters of the whole em-
pire. The names of these men are deserving of everlasting
remembrance ; they will be sought out by the future his-
torians as deserving the highest panegyrism ; for through
them O'Connell was elected, and through him British in-
tolerance received its death-blow.

The day of election being near at hand, Mr. Shiel, ap*
pointed counsel for Mr. O'Connell, left Dublin for the
scene of action. On arriving at Ennis, he ascertained that
the tenantry of Sir Edward O'Brien (who, although a
Catholic, refused to support Mr. O'Connell) had been
brought to their master's way of thinking, and were pledged
to vote for Mr. Fitzgerald. The energetic counsellor saw
there was no time to be lost ; it was Saturday evening, but
he started immediately, and after travelling from twilight
until nearly noon, he arrived at the humble mountain
chapel of Corrofin, where the electors he sought were then
at mass. After the sacrifice had been offered, the celebrant
introduced him. by a few remarks in Gaelic, to the congre-
gation. They were old men and young, widows, wives,
and children gathered before the low door of that rugged
temple. It was a wild scene, well suited to the genius of
the spokesman ; he was amid the venerable hills of Tho-
mond, and his soul, like Ossian's, went abroad amongst the
children of the mountains. Visions of glory rolled along
their summits, studding the sky with the sparkling of armor
and the clashing of shields. The orator's chest heaved, his
lips trembled, his eye fired, and then, after a long pause, as
if for breathing, out rushed the language of inspiration,
pouring like a torrent fresh from a long pent-up cavern,
ind overturning every obstacle in its career. The auditory
felt the inspiration that burned or melted in his words ;
ihey were swayed before his breath, as forest trees wave in
;he tempest ; they yielded to the magic of oratory, and fol-
j^wed the enthusiastic speaker, on the morrow, to the polls.

This scene at the chapel of Corrofin could only be ex«
ceeded by that which was enacted in the streets of Ennis^

106

on the arrival of Mr. O'Connell. Those who were eye-
witnesses have never lost the actual sight, while no man
hath attempted to describe it ; even Shiel, who pounced
upon every incident calculated to give a pictorial interest
to the sameness of political advocacy, has left that subject
untouched because of its magnitude. The streets were
crowded ; the thoroughfares leading to the town were
crowded ; the ladies of the adjacent country graced the win-
dows and balconies ; the housetops were bristling with hu-
man bodies, and the prolonged cheers of the vast throngs
surged like the Atlantic upon a rocky shore at night — loud,
awful and mysterious. At length O'Connell arrived, and
then the voices of the multitude rose in simultaneous cheers,
deafening each other. Who, in such an hour, but would
feel himself a conqueror ?

On the appointed day, the Court House was besieged
with persons anxious for admittance. The sheriff read the
writ of election. Beside him, on the left, stood Mr. Vesey
Fitzgerald, surrounded by the chief gentlemen of Clare.
On the opposite side appeared the stalwart form and laugh-
ing countenance of Mr. O'Connell, with more frieze coats
than broadcloth in his body-guard. There was a gentle-
man in tabinet, however, who had perched himself, by
a feat of unusual agility, upon a cross-beam of the court,
that rendered him no small service. This was no other
than Mr. O'Gorman Mahon. The high sheriff, observing
the attention he attracted, rather tartly desired him to take
off a broad green badge, from which hung the medal of the
order of Liberators : " I tell that gentleman there," cried
the functionary, " to take off that badge." There was a
brief pause, when Mahon slowly replied — " This gentle-
man tells that gentleman, that if that gentleman presumes
to touch this gentleman, this gentleman will defend him-
self against that gentleman or any other gentleman while
he has got the arm of a gentleman to protect him."
This reply struck dumb the pompous sheriff, a loud cheer
burst from the body of the court, and a look of deep vexa-
tion fastened upon the countenances of the ministerial can-
didate and his friends. When silence was obtained. Sir Ed-
ward O'Brien proposed, and Sir A. Fitzgerald seconded
the nomination of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, " as a fit and proper
person" to represent the county of Clare in Parliament.
Mr. O'Gorman Mahon then proposed, and Mr. Steele sec-

107

onded the nomination of Daniel O'Connell in the same
words. The candidates then addressed the electors — Mr.
Fitzgerald having the precedence. His speech was allowed
upon all hands to be a very able and appropriate one ; his
modest allusion to his own services in the Catholic cause,
and to those of his father, (at that time lying on his death-
bed,) in the days of the disastrous union, softened every
bosom towards him. There was an amiable sincerity in
all he said, which evidently impressed the vast assemblage
within the walls, who saluted him, on sitting down, with
renewed and enthusiastic approval. Mr. O'Connell suc-
ceeded, and delivered one of those long and magnificent
speeches by which he has bound to himself the heart of
Ireland, so that no man can take it from him. He was
everything by turns — sportive and sad, severe and charita-
ble, and the people doubled with him as supple as young
hares sporting on a fallow. They were now roused up to
the most indignant pitch of patriotic hatred, and again
melted into feminine softness by the pathos of their favorite.
After a brief exordium, he had them all his own way, and
ne took good care to preserve his advantage. Of that effort
all description would be needless, as all praise would be in
vain. It will suffice to say, that after one of the closest
contests in the annals of electioneering, Daniel O'Connell
was declared by the high sheriff "duly elected" for the
county of Clare. The excitement died away — the people
returned to their homes — the gentry to lament their over-
throw, and O'Connell to plead before the bar of the House
of Commons, for the recognition of the religious rights and
civil liberties of his countrymen. His name was not a
stranger to their ears, for years before he entered that
assembly, his spirit had disturbed its bigotry, and shaken
on its escutcheoned pillars, the antique cobwebs of con-
servatism.

Before, however, he could enter Parliament, the ministry
resolved to force through a bill of emancipation ; and thus
they succeeded in depriving him of the honor of the
victory, though they could not shield themselves from the
ignominy of defeat.

The autumn of 1828 beheld the Irish nation on the verge
of civil war. The commander of the forces communicated
to the ministry the fearful news, that the loyalty of the
army could not be depended on. Aggregate meetings, pa-

108

rochial meetings, and every other mode of evading coercive
law, was resorted to ; and thie fires of a new rebellion began
to gleam forth from the bustle and confusion of the vast
open air demonstrations, in which the people thrust forth
their thousand hands. The rulers of the empire became,
or affected to be, really alarmed. A call of the Houses of
Parliament was accordingly made, for an early day in the
ensuing year ; and on the 5th of March, the first day of
their assembling, Mr. Peel moved a committee of the whole
house, to go into a " consideration of the civil disabilities
of his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects." This motion,
after a two-days' debate, was carried by a majority of 188.
On the 10th of March, the bill was read for the first time,
and passed without opposition, such being the arrangement
entered into while in committee. But even in five days,
the ancient bigotry of the land had been aroused ; nine
hundred and fifty-seven petitions had already been present-
ed against it ; that from the city of London was signed by
more than "an hundred thousand freeholders."^ On the
17th it passed to a second reading, and on the 30th to a
third, with large majorities in each stage of debate. Out
of 320 members who voted on the final reading, 178 were
in its favor. On the 31st of March it was carried to the
Lords by Mr. Peel, and instantly read a first time ; and
two days later, (on the second of April,) it was read a
second time, on motion of the Duke of Wellington ; a
bitterly contested debate of three days followed ; on the
10th, it was read a third time, and passed by a majority of
104. Three days later, it received the royal assent — and
in three more, the unanimous welcome of the Irish Catho-
lics, as well as of all their brethren in the three kingdoms,
and of the dissenters.

Thus was proposed, debated and enacted, in the brief
space of five weeks, one of the most important measures
ever considered by a British Parliament. From the time
of the Revolution, there had been no such change effected ;
for this was, in reality, an alteration of the Constitution.
Great popular concessions had been made, from the days
of King John, by bad or weak monarchs; able and popular
senators had carried through Parliament some miniature
reforms ; but with the exception of the Bill of Rights, there

* Vide Croly's « George the Fourth."

109

is no legal advance of the legislature to be at all compared,
in the extent of its operations, or in the importance of its
results, with the act of Catholic emancipation. When we
consider the vast number of persons suddenly restored to
their civil rights, from a state of hereditary outlawry, we
cannot but regard with awe and admiration the unconquer-
able spirit of the man, who trampled upon custom, prejudice
and intolerance, and forced the minions of sectarian ascen-
dancy to destroy its immunities, and break down the bulky
exclusiveness with which it had, year after year, and age
after age, surrounded the franchise, and laden down the
civil and social rights of the people. The British Empire
probably contained, at that time, 150,000,000 of souls, or

'about one fifth of the people of the earth. Of these a mere
moiety belonged to the Church of England, and an honest
man of any other creed could not consistently take the test

/Oath, or the oath of supremacy. He who believed in the
apostleship of Knox, and he who held the primacy of Saint
Peter ; the disciple of Priestly, the proselyte of Paine, the
follower of Wesley, could never in conscience swear that
in the person of the lecherous and foppish George the
Fourth, they recognized the deputy of the All-Pure, and
the visible head of the only true church. In short, no
matter what the difference between their dissent from the
Thirty-Nine Articles, if they were in earnest in their an-
tipathy to that definition of the faith of the establishment,
they could not swear to the contrary, in truth or with a
safe conscience. When, therefore, Daniel O'Connell liber-
ated the Catholic, he by the same blow struck off' the fetters
from the dissenter, and released private judgment from its
ancient disabilities. One fifth of the people of the entire
world are now his debtors for the acknowledgment of the
principle and practice of religious toleration by their impe-
rial legislature, and crown.

While the measure of emancipation was calculated to
bestow so many and such extensive benefits on the whole
empire, the ministry, with mean dexterity, attached to it a
clause by which Mr. O'Connell was deprived of its benefits,
he having been elected previous to its enactment. The
stor^r of this petty insult is as follows : —

On Wednesday, the 5th of March, 1829, a petition hav-
ing been presented against Mr. O'Connell's return, a par-
liamentary committee met to take into consideration that

110

gentleman's eligibility to sit for Clare. Some days pre-
viously, he had published an elaborate legal argument,
proving his perfect right so to do. His counsel before the
committee were Mr. F. Pollock, Charles Phillips, Mr.
Alderson, and Mr. Lynch. Those of the petitioners were
Messrs. Harrison, Adams and Doherty. The proceedings
of this committee are so well described in the London
papers, and are of themselves so important, that I cannot
refrain from giving them in detail.

" Mr. Walmesley, the clerk of the committee, read the
petition against the return of Mr. O'Connell, which set
forth that on the hustings he (Mr. O'Connell) said he was
'a Roman Catholic, and would so continue till the end of
his life ;' that ' he would never take the oaths,' &c. It also
detailed the placards, acts of intimidation, commands of
' vote for your religion,' &c.

Mr. Harrison asked whether it was requisite to read the
whole of the petition ? All the allegations were abandoned
except that as to the eligibility of Mr. O'Connell. The
question, in fact, reduced itself to a question of law.

The Chairman, after consulting with the committee, ac-
quiesced. ^ _ .

Mr. Harrison then said, that he had made a proposition
to the counsel of Mr. O'Connell. He was instructed to
submit, that Mr. O'Connell was ineligible to sit as a mem-
ber, and therefore to be elected. He had, consequently, to
urge on the committee to direct the inquiry first to be made,
whether Mr. O'Connell was eligible ? If the question were
decided against him, such decision would close his case,
for all depended on that question. He quoted several cases
from Douglas' Reports and Election Law, to show that the
committee, where there were several points of inquiry, had
frequently decided that the material point, whether of law
or otherwise, should be first settled. It would materially
save the labor of the committee if this course were pursued.
The only question he and his friends had to raise was,
whether Mr. O'Connell was eligible? If Mr. O'Connell
were not eligible, then it remained for him to show that
Mr. O'Connell was a Roman Catholic — that the fact was
notorious — and that the election proceeded on the notoriety
of such fact.

Mr. Adam spoke to the like effect, observing, that by the

Ill

committee coming to such decision, the time would be ma-
terially saved.

Mr. F. Pollock, on the part of Mr. O'Connell, complained
of being taken somewhat by surprise, and of the want of
courtesy in its not having been communicated to him what
course would be pursued. His learned friend had chosen
to assume that Mr. O'Connell was a Roman Catholic; and
on that was to be raised a dry abstract question of law,
without any knowledge of the facts on which that barren
question was to be raised. There was new law, too, pro-
nounced— that Mr. O'Connell being a Roman Catholic, as
was assumed, was ineligible to be elected. But ' Roman
Catholic' — he had read all the acts, and he nowhere found
the words, as to whether a ' Roman Catholic ' was eligible
or ineligible. What was meant by ' Roman Catholic ? '

Mr. Harrison. — Well, I will not quarrel about terms ; I
mean Papist.

Mr. F. Pollock admitted that there were certain barriers
to protect the representation, and that the committee could
decide by what course they would pursue the inquiry ; but
he implored the committee to allow him to hear the facts to
which they intended to apply the alleged law, before they
were called on to argue an abstract question of law. Let
the facts first be stated.

Mr. Alderson followed on the same side. He admitted
where there were different points, it was convenient to
separate the objects of investigation, and complained of the
unfairness of being first, and unexpectedly, required to
argue a dry question of law.

Mr. Harrison begged to observe that he had meant no
unfairness ; that he had pursued the usual course in elec-
tion cases, and that during twenty-six years' practice before
Commons' election committees, he had never given the
previous notice now complained of as not having been
given. He thought it was by far the best course to settle
this questioil first. If he were thrown upon the proof, he
would appeal to the notoriety of the fact, and to the re-
peated declarations of Mr. O'Connell, that he not only was
a Roman Catholic or Papist, but that he would ever con-
tinue such.

Lord W. Russell desired Mr. Harrison to say, in distinct
terms, what was his proposition.

Mr. Harrison. — It is this — that Mr. O'Connell, being a

112

Koman Catholic, or Papist, was ineligible to be elected, to
be returned, or to sit.

The committee then desired the room to be cleared.
After about ten minutes' consultation, the counsel and
agents were re-admitted.

Lord W. Russell then said : *As chairman, I am desired
to inform you, that the committee are of opinion the counsel
for the petition should first proceed to prove the fact.'

Mr. Harrison.— That is, to prove the whole of my case.

The Chairman. — Yes, the whole facts of your case.

Mr. Harrison then rose for such purpose. He began by
observing, that he should have to trespass at great length,
by first stating the law of the case, the several statutes
passed to exclude Papists from the Houses of Parliament,
namely, 5th Elizabeth, 3d James I., 7th James I., 30th
Charles I., and 1st William and Mary. They required the
oaths of allegiance and supremacy first to be taken before
the Lord Steward, or his deputy, and then in the house,
with the Speaker in the chair. That course continued
down to the present time. The 1st of William and Mary
particularly described the former oaths, the modes of taking
them, and again enacted that they should still continue to
be taken in such manner, and none other. This was requi-
site to be enforced by the convention Parliament, because
the dissenters would not take the oath of supremacy any
more than the Papists or Roman Catholics ; for the one
said that Christ was the head of the church, as the Papists
declared the Pope to be. The first act of William and
Mary was the only act that applied to the case, though
others had been referred to — he meant by the gentleman
against whom he petitioned. He did not know how to
describe that gentleman. He was not the sitting member,
because he had not appeared to take his seat ; he did not
like to call him the ' franking' member, as some had termed
him ; he would therefore style him by a term that was well
known and much used in Ireland — the ' titular' member for
Clare ; and that would be equally applicable after Mr.
Vesey Fitzgerald should have taken his seat for Clare. (A
laugh.) He contended that, next to the laws existing, the
constant practice of the law was the strongest proof. No
one ever dreamed that unnecessary oaths had been taken,
till the titular member for Clare came with his new light ;
Ijut he maintained that 1 William, c. 8, was the governing

113

statute, and referred to by 1 Geo. I., 6 Geo. III., c. 53, as

well as the Act of Union, recognized it. The forms of
oaths were there settled, and so continued down to the
present time. [Mr. Harrison argued these points at great
length, reading the several clauses of the different acts.]
But it was said that no time was prescribed when the oaths
should be taken ; this was answered not only by the acts
already named, but by the 33 Geo. XL, chap. 20, all which
prescribed that the several oaths, &c. must be taken 'beforo
they can sit and vote.' Then, unless the member, whoever
he might be, intended not to go into the house — he spoke
seriously — unless he desired to continue the 'titular' or
'franking' member — the member must take the oaths 'be-
fore' he took the seat, and voted. Unless he read the acts,
it would hardly be believed that a barrister, who ought to
have known better, could have asserted in print, the
pamphlets having been most industriously circulated, that
'no time' was specified for taking the oaths. The like
omissions on broad assertions were made respecting Yel-
verton's Act, the Union, &c. He contended that the act
of Union, 39 and 40 Geo. III., c. 67, said, as regarded
peers, that they should take the oaths and make the declar-
ation as then established by law. It abrogated no laws,
except where that was specifically done ; but on the con-
trary, enjoined the taking and subscribing of oaths, &c., as
previously established. As to the doctrine held to the
contrary, it was puerile and absurd. And as to 'Roman
Catholics ' being nowhere mentioned, as was alleged by
Mr. Pollock, the 33d Geo. III., c. 21, was expressly 'for
the further relief of Papists or Roman Catholics.' The
learned gentleman then proceeded at some length to show,
that by the construction of those acts a Roman Catholic
was ineligible to sit, and, being so ineligible, a person de-
claring himself to be a Roman Catholic, and that being a
matter of notoriety, he was ineligible to be a candidate, or
to be returned, and that therefore his election was, to all
intents and purposes, null and void. At the conclusion of
his address, the learned gentleman put in the return of the
high sherifT, to which were appended a certificate from the
office of the Crown and Hanaper in Ireland, of Mr. O'Con-
nell having been sworn in as a Roman Catholic barrister,
also an affidavit of his having declared himself a Catholic.
Mr. F. Pollock objected to those documents being re-
10*

114

ceived with the return, and contended, that the sheriff had
no right to make those additions to his return ; and that
on that ground they could not be received. Nothing- could
be received as evidence but the return. In some particular
cases the sheriff might no doubt receive evidence ; for in-
stance, in that of a boy of tender age, and notoriously a
minor, he might receive evidence of the fact, and append it
to his return ; but in most other cases, and in the present,
his office was purely ministerial, and he was bound to
make the return, and any addition to it would be irregular
on his part, and could not therefore be admitted as evi-
dence with the return itself. It was suggested to him
(Mr. Pollock) by his learned friend Mr. Alderson, that a
clergyman entering a register of a baptism, and adding in
it the age of the child, the register would be legal evidence
of the baptism, but the entry of the age could not be re-
ceived as evidence of the age, because the party was author-
ized only to register the fact of the baptism, and not the
age. In like manner an entry or addition to the return,
which the sheriff was not authorized to make, could not be
received as evidence of any fact with the return.

Mr. Harrison contended, that the sheriff was bound to
state, in his return, the special circumstances of any pecu-
liar case, and to add any evidence that he might have
received of those circumstances ; and that such addition
must be received along with the return. As to the case
which his learned friend had cited, the entry of the clergy-
man of the age of the child could not be legally received,
because the clergyman could not know the fact of his own
knowledge.

Mr. Pollock, in reply, observed, that let the same test be
put to the case before the committee, and it would at once
put an end to his learned friend's argument. How, he
asked, could the sheriff know anything of the affidavit?
It was handed to him as sworn ; but how could he know
that fact, or know that it was true ?

After some further discussion, the room was cleared, and
strangers were excluded for about twenty minutes.

'On the return of counsel, they were informed by the
chairman, that the documents appended to the writ might
be read ; but that reading was not to be considered as evi-
dence of the truth of their contents.

The documents were then read by the clerk, after which

115

Colonel Fitzgerald was put into the box, and proved that he
had heard Mr. O'Connell declare at the hustings that the
freeholders had to choose between him and Mr. Vesey
Fitzgerald ; that Mr. Fitzgerald had sworn, on taking his
seat in Parliament, that their religion (that of the Catholics)
was impious and idolatrous, and was ready to swear it
again, should he be returned ; but that he (Mr. O'Connell)
being a Roman Catholic, would never take any such oath, —
that he would sooner die first..

On his cross-examination. Colonel Fitzgerald admitted
that Mr. O'Connell more than once declared that it was not
necessary that he, as a Catholic, should take the oaths, —
that he would try that question.

Mr. Dillon Macnamara gave similar testimony as to the
declarations of Mr. O'Connell of his being a Catholic.

In his cross-examination, he made the same admission as
to Mr. O'Connell's assertion, that it would not be necessary
for him to take the oaths previously to his taking his seat.

In answer to another question, as to whether Mr. O'Con-
nell had not expressed his determination to try the right,
witness replied, that no doubt he had, but the right could
not be tried till the return was made. This produced a
laugh among Mr. O'Connell's friends ; and Mr. O'Connell
observed to one of his counsel — " Certainly it could not, and
that is the whole of the case."

Harrison said he should call no further evidence on this
part of his case.

The chairman, after consulting with the committee, de-
clared it would be advisable to adjourn the committee till
the following day, when it again met, and Mr. Pollock inti-
mated that it was not intended to examine any witnesses on
the part of Mr. O'Connell.

Mr. Adam said that that would throw some difficulty in
his way, and then proceeded to argue in support of the peti-
tion. The- learned gentleman, in the first instance, directed
his attention to the various text writers and authorities,
proving the necessity of taking the oaths of allegiance and
supremacy before the Lord Steward, prior to any member's
being admitted, under the law of the 1st of Elizabeth, to
enter the House of Commons. The principal act, however,
on which he relied in this part of his case, was the 3d
William and Mary, c. 2, which extended to Ireland the
provisions of the statute 30th Charles II. ; and he referred

lie

to the history of that period in support of his construction
of this act, in order to show that the object of it was to ex-
clude Papists. That was effected by one of the clauses,
which declared the Invocation of the Virgin Mary and the
sacrifice of the mass to be superstitious and idolatrous,
which was a test that the Catholic could not get over.
That, however, was not the only test. It had been at-
tempted to be denied that Yelverton's Act, which recognized
these statutes, did not adopt them so as to create exclusion.
But a very slight consideration of the very words of the
statute would suffice to prove the futility of such an argu-
ment. From the passing of that act up to the time of the
Union, members of Parliament took the oaths prescribed
by the English statute of Charles II., and it was not until
lately that this new light broke in, by which it appeared
that these statutes had no reference to Ireland at all. The
9th section of the act of 1793, which relieved the Catholics,
also mentioned that no one could sit in Parliament unless
the oaths and declarations were made and subscribed accord-
ing to the law as then in force, thereby expressly recog-
nizing the act of William and Mary. If the act of Union
did, as he contended, continue the law, it was certain that
no Catholic could sit in Parliament ; and if even there were
any doubt upon that act, the 41st Geo. III., ch. 52, 101,
left no doubt upon the subject, and seemed as if framed in
anticipation of the arguments used at the other side. It
could not be deduced from either of them that it was the
intention of the legislature at the time of the Union to let
Koman Catholics into Parliament. He admitted that if the
prohibitions in these acts were established for the first time,
they would not amount to a disqualification. But the act
enjoined the taking of the oaths before accustomed and
known to be taken by the members of both the Parliaments,
which were then united ; and it was therefore impossible to
say that all the consequences which were applicable to
English members of Parliament would not equally apply to
Irish members. It was said that there was no time, place,
or person appointed for the administering the oath, which
would leave the act open to this interpretation, that no oath
at all need be taken. The nature of the act pointed out a
place, for the 30th Ch. II. merely said that the oath was^ to
be taken in the House of Commons, and no more ; there-
fore, it would be absurd to say that there was no place to be

117

found for the purpose. The time, place, and manner were
provided by the different acts to which the act of Union
referred, and it was not necessary they should be set out
modo et forma, as if they were to be inserted in a special
declaration. A distinction was drawn also between the act
of Union with Ireland and that of Scotland, because in
the latter the disabilities were directly declared to follow
from the refusal of the oaths, while in the former there is
only an injunction to take the oaths theretofore usually
taken. Both of them, however, were equally valid ; the
latter might, no doubt, have been as special, but it was not
reasonable to infer from the absence of special and precise
terms, that it was the intention of the Legislature to omit
the fulfilment of what it had before enjoined. The learned
gentleman then proceeded lo argue, that the 41st Geo. III.,
c. 52, applied to all persons returned to Parliament. In
proof of this he referred to the title of the act, which de-
scribed it as showing " what persons " are disabled from
voting and sitting in Parliament. There were three classes
of persons so disabled by the act, the first and second of
which had no particular reference to placemen, but applied
equally to all. The learned gentleman, after concluding
this part of his case, proceeded to argue, that if a Papist
could not sit and vote, he was not eligible to be returned.
He began by asking for what purpose would a member be
sent to Parliament if he could not sit there, except indeed
to give considerable trouble in the first instance, and to leave
a portion of the king's subjects unrepresented. There was
nothing more jealously looked for than having a full House
of Commons, and it was therefore the intention of the Legis-
lature that every member should be able to sit ; otherwise
the law would allow, what it never does, that something
should be done in vain. The 6th section of the 41st Geo.
III. proved this ; for it said, that " if any person declared
incapable, or disabled from sitting and voting, should never-
theless be elected, such return or election was declared null
and void." The consequence then must be, that a new writ
should be issued, and a new election be had. Assuming,
therefore, that a Roman Catholic could not sit, he contended
that the election of one was void. The learned gentleman
supported this argument by several quotations from Black-
stone, Douglas, and by reference to the cases of Sir Richard
Allen and Mr. Ongly, which arose under the acts of King

118

"William and Queen Anne, with, respect to placemen. He
contended, further, that a member was complete the moment
he was returned, before he either sat or voted ; and in proof
of this he cited " Hatsell, page 88," who instanced, in sup-
port of this doctrine, the case of Sir Joseph Jekyli, who was
chosen on the committee of secrecy, in 1715, before he took
the oaths at the table of the house. He concluded by calling
on this committee to look at the history of all these acts,
and he was of opinion that they would decide with him, and
declare the return of Mr. O'Connell as one who could not
sit in the house, to be null and void.

Mr. F. Pollock, for Mr. O'Connell, said that he would
not follow either the course of argument pursued by his
friend, Mr. Harrison, the day before, nor would he make
any allusion to the first two hours of Mr. Adam's speech.
It was unquestionable, that before the Union between Great
Britain and Ireland any Catholic refusing to take the oaths
would be undoubtedly excluded from sitting or voting in
Parliament. Agreeing in all that Mr. Adam stated up to
that period, he denied his conclusion ; and with respect to
the Act of Union, and the subsequent Act, he would not
trouble the committee, because the question must be de-
cided elsewhere. The general question of emancipation
had nothing to do with this particular subject, which must
be considered as a mere point of law. He had nothing of
overweening confidence in his own opinion, nor would he
enter into those differences or mistakes which might have
been fallen into by some gentlemen who wrote pamphlets.
He, however, doubted whether what Mr. Harrison stated
was anything more than a re-publication of what had been
published by a learned member of the House of Commons.
But it had very little to do with the question then before the
committee. The first point, he asserted, was, that up to the
Union of Great Britain and Ireland, any person was entitled
to be elected without any disqualification affecting a Roman
Catholic as such ; for that, although the oaths and declara-
tions were necessary to entitle a person to sit and vote, yet
until that period had arrived, and he failed in doing so, he
was completely a member of the House, to all intents and
purposes, and his election was good and valid; that he
proved by reference to the first statute quoted, which di-
rected that members theretofore elected should take the
oaths before the Lord Steward, and should not otherwise b«

119

deemed knights of the shire. The languag-e of the 30th
Chs. II. was equally clear in recognizing the validity of the
election, but left it on the conscience of the member whether
he would take the oath in the time and manner specified.
Peers and members of Parliament were on the same footino-.
The Act of William and Mary was the only one that ap-
plied to Ireland, and that said that no peer could sit and
vote or give his proxy without takmg the oaths, nor any
member of the House of Commons could sit or vote without
taking the oaths thereinafter mentioned. That statute thus
recognized him to be a member, and only enacted that he
could not sit and vote, until he had taken the oaths, &c.
It went on to say, that such peer or member of Parliament
should be disabled from thenceforth ; wherefore the distinc-
tion was plain. The committee were only to decide upon
what was enacted, but they could not decide, that if an indi-
vidual were once a Catholic, he should be incapable of being
at any subsequent period elected. It was urged at the other
side that there was a test, and yet they would not abide by
it, nor by the care and the provisions of Parliament, but
would call on the committee to declare that there was no
necessity for that test. Those enactments were devised be-
cause the Legislature found it impossible to dive into the
consciences of men, and perhaps with a view that by being
allo^ved to be elected, persons might be induced to take
these oaths. Peers Avere entitled to their seats on merely
taking the oaths ; but still the king could create Catholic
peers. He would then leave that part of the question, satis-
fied that the validity of elections was recognized by every
statute up to the Union. The second point he contended
for was that the Act of Union left the question preciselj?
where it found it. This part of the subject the learned gen
tleman illustrated by a number of quotations from the Scotch
and Irish Acts of Union, and continued to say that if the
Act of Union provided that all members must take the oaths
before they voted, that alone must settle the question, and
that Mr. O'Connell was not subject to any disqualification
that v/as not shared by others in the kingdom — namely, the
not taking the oaths. The learned gentleman proceeded to
say, that he merely assumed that it was necessary to take
the oaths for the purpose of the committee entering his pro-
test, that that part of the question must be decided before
the House of Commons. The question for the committee

120

was, not whether there was evidence of Mr. O'Connell's
being a Catholic, or of his final perseverance in the Catholic
faith, for they could not know what he might do, when he
went to demand his seat in the House. The term disability-
could not refer to Mr. O'Connell ; he was under none ; for
there was no diving into a man's conscience, and no one
could say whether he might or might not take these oaths,
although it was contended that Mr. O'Connell was at this
moment disabled, because, by and by, he might not choose
to take the oaths that were required. Blackstone had been
referred to ; but that eminent constitutional lawyer, amongst
the disabilities he enumerated, never mentioned the fact of
Catholics being disqualified from being elected. [Here Mr.
Adam put into the hands of Mr. Pollock Mr. Coleridge's
edition of Blackstone, which in a note enumerated Papists,
peers, and outlaws, as having been omitted in Blackstone's
catalogue of disqualified persons.] Mr. Pollock commented
shortly upon this note, and asked what necessity existed to
enumerate peers amongst disqualified persons, when even
judges who were commoners were included in the list on
account of their attendance on the Lords' House. He pro-
ceeded to say that he was not there to deny Mr. O'Connell's
being a Catholic, but merely to watch the evidence given.
There was, however, no Act of Parliament which fixed the
indelibility of the Catholic faith upon a man, like holy
orders ; and the history of the country showed, from the
many changes of religion which had taken place, that the
Legislature intended to give the very last moment for the
taking of those oaths. What was there to prevent Mr.
O'Connell from taking those oaths, although his learned
friends at the other side would argue, that although he did
so, he could not yet be a member of Parliament ? The
committee must, to decide in favor of the petitioners, adopt
two propositions — first, that Mr. O'Connell will not take the
oaths ; and, secondly, that when he presents himself for the
purpose of doing so, he will not be permitted. That discus-
sion could only arise when Mr. O'Connell presented himself
to the House, and then a great question would have to be
decided. He trusted that Mr. O'Connell was returned to
try a great right, and that the committee would give him an
opportunity of doing so, and that they would not come to a
decision contrary to the usage of all tribunals, by antici-
pating^ what any individual might do at a future period.

121

The learned gentleman ceased speaking at half past three
o'clock.

" The chairman of the committee (Lord William Russell)
then asked whether the case was closed on both sides, and
having been answered in the affirmative, strangers were
ordered to withdraw, when the committee, after a few
minutes' deliberation, adjourned until the next day.

" On the meeting of Parliament on the following day,
Lord John Russell, as the organ of the Committee appointed
to take into consideration the petition of Daniel O'ConnelL,
Esq., reported to the House, that Daniel O'Connell, Esq.
was duly returned, and that the opposition of Thomas Ma-
hon was neither frivolous nor vexatious."

This decision was received with evident chagrin by the
ministers, who were not prepared to disprove it, although
resolved to do so, if possible.

On Wednesday, the 15th of May, Mr. O'Connell entered
the House of Commons, considering himself entitled to sit
there, by the provisions of the late act, as well as by the
decision of the committee. On his way thither, he had
found the streets crowded by a breathless mass of human
beings, straining their eyes on each actor as he passed to
the stage, and eagerly expecting the result. When he
entered the house, which was unusually crowded, he felt
himself the object of an absorbing curiosity ; every eye was
on his manly form, and every brow stamped with thought
and not a few shaded with trouble. Lords Ebrington and
Duncannon accompanied him to the table, where stood the
clerk holding the tablets, on which the oaths were printed.
He crossed the floor, hallowed by the footsteps of so many
great senators, with a monarch's dignity; since the days of
Sir Thomas More there had appeared within those walls
no layman fit to be his peer. He felt that though the walls
around him were inanimate, still they had been consecrated
to genius in the echoes of Burke's orations and Chatham's
early eloquence. Genius reverences genius, and a less
sensitive nature than his who stood before the Commoners
of England, would have been impressed with a solemnity
of the place. When the oaths were tendered to him, he
pointed out such passages as in conscience he could not
take, which the clerk of the House reported to the speaker.
After examining the objections, the speaker rose and briefly
11

122

stating his reasons why the proposition of Mr. O^Connell,
to take certain portions should not be allowe'd, ordered that
gentleman to retire. This being done, a very animated
debate ensued upon the propriety — 1st. Of hearing the hon-
orable gentleman's objections. 2d. Of where he should be
heard ; whether at the table or at the bar. On this ques-
tion there was a great diversity of opinion ; the chief
debaters were Mr. Brougham, Mr. Tierney, and Mr. Wynn,
in favor of hearing the objections forthwith, and Sir Robert
Peel, and Mr. Sugden for adjourning the debate until the
the following Monday, giving members time to examine
carefully into the merits of the application. The latter pre-
vailed.

On Monday, the 18th, the debate was resumed on Mr.
Brougham*s motion ; viz., " that the honorable member for
Clare be heard at the table, on his objections to the oath
of supremacy.'^ Sir Robert Peel moved, as an amendment,
that he be heard at the bar, and, after some mutual conces-
sions, the amendment was carried, and Mr. O'Connell was
introduced.

His argument on that occasion was long and powerful;
it was marked with courtesy towards the House, and at the
same time with the strongest convictions of his own right to
sit therein. " The question is," he said in conclusion, " is
it not my right on this return to take the seat to which I
have been duly elected ? Is the question free from doubt ?
If there be a doubt, I am entitled to the benefit of that
doubt. I maintain that I have a constitutional right, founded
on the return of the sheriff and the voice of the people ; and
if there be a doubt upon the subject it ought to be removed.
The statute comes before us to be construed from the first
clause. I did — and I am not ashamed to own it — I did
defer to the opinions of others, and was averse from calling
for that construction, and if it had not been for the interests
of those who sent me here, my own rights should have been
buried in oblivion. But now I require the House to con-
sider it. Will you decide that a civil right does not mean a
civil right? And if this case of mine be not excepted, will
you add it as an additional exception ? It might have been
said by some of those who supported the bill that it was
intended by that measure to compensate a nation for by-
gone wrongs, and to form the foundation stone of a solid
and substantial building, to be consecrated to the unity and

123

peace of the empire. But if what is certain may be dis-
turbed ; if what words express may be erased ; civil rights
may be determined not by civil rights, if we are to be told
that, by some excuse or by some pretext, what is not uncer-
tain may be made so, we shall be put under an impossi-
bility to know what construction we must hereafter place
on the statute. I have endeavored to treat this House with
respect. My title to sit in it is clear and plain ; and I con-
tend that the statute is all comprehensive in its intention, in
its recital, and in its enactments. It comprehends every
principle and measure of relief with such exceptions as are
thereinafter excepted. But while I show my respect for
this House, I stand here on my right and claim the benefit
of it."

The honorable gentleman thus closed his plea, and with-
drew amidst the renewed plaudits of nearly all the members
and persons in the galleries.

The Solicitor General then rose to reply, but first hoped
the House would permit him to say that the plea of the
member for Clare " was characterized by that ability which
they had a right to expect from one so distinguished in his
profession," and that the temper he had displayed had done
him " great credit as a man and a gentleman ;" he then
went into a learned and copious argument on his inadmis-
sibility, and concluded by moving, " that Mr. O'Connell,
having been returned a member of this House before the
passing of the act for the relief of the Roman Catholics, he
is not entitled to sit or vote in this House unless he first
takes the oath of supremacy."

Mr. George Lambe differed materially from the Solicitor
General, and hoped the old act was not to be revived "and
levelled at the honorable member for Clare."

Mr. Fergusson supported the views of the Solicitor Gen-
eral.

Mr. W. Fitzgerald contravened several of the proposi-
tions of the latter gentleman.

Mr. Suo^den followed in an elaborate argument in favor
of the Solicitor General's views, but declared in his perora-
tion that — " for one, he should be very happy to see the
honorable and learned gentleman in the House ; convinced
as he was, from the temper and ability which he had that
evening manifested, that he would be a very valuable acqui-
sition."

124

Sir James Scarlett followed on the same side in a true
lawyer's speech. He agreed with Mr. Sugden as to the
admirable conduct of the honorable member of Clare ; " it
certainly would be a subject of great regret to him, if the
House should feel obliged, in the discharge of their duty, to
vote the exclusion of so able a man." He did not think
that his honorable friend (the Solicitor General) had an-
swered all the obiections of the honorable member for Clare.
He hoped that it would not be made a party question, and
then proceeded to the merits, which he discussed with dis-
tinguished ability.

Mr. Wynne was in favor of another, of a new act, which
should embrace the case of the member for Clare.

Mr. Doherty felt it his duty, although a relation of Mr.
O'Connell's, to support the motion of his right honorable
friend, the Solicitor General.

Mr. Brougham rejoined in a very convincing speech.
After what had been said, no member of the House need be
ashamed to confess his doubts upon the nice points of law
involved, and if so, the member for Clare was entitled to the
benefit of their doubts. " They had all heard the able and
manly, though mild and unobtrusive manner, in which Mr.
O'Connell had urged his claims at the bar. That argu-
ment had not been touched."

Mr. Peel had no doubt whatever upon the subject, and
went into a long argument to prove that the oaths of supre-
macy and abjuration could not have been repealed by the
first of William and Mary.

When he concluded, the question was put and the House
having divided, there appeared for the Solicitor General's
motion, 190. Against it, 116. Majority, 74.

The following day, immediately on the members' assem-
bling, Mr. O'Connell was sent for to the bar of the House,
when the resolution was read to him by the speaker, and it
was then demanded of him whether he would take the oath
of supremacy. Having asked for, and received from the
clerk, a copy of the oath, he said, in a clear and resolute
voice, — " There is one assertion in this oath which I do
not know to be true ; there is another which I do not be-
lieve to be true. I cannot, therefore, take this oath." Then
he bowed to the House and withdrew.

Immediately on Mr. O'Connell's leaving the House, the
Solicitor General moved for the issue of a new writ for

125

Clare. On this motion another lengthy debate ensued
between Messrs. Wynn and Sir James Mackintosh against
its immediate issue, and Sir Robert Peel and the Solicitor
General in support of the latter's motion. The house then
adjourned until the 2 1st. On that day, Mr. Spring Rice,
in a lengthy speech moved the amendment of the " Catholic
Relief Bill,=^ Chap. 7, in relation to the oaths to be taken
by Catholic members." This motion, however, was lost,
the previous one carried, and a new writ issued for Clare.

CHAPTER NINTH.

O^Connell is reelected for Clare. — View of the State of Eu-
rope.— Various Successes of Revolutionary Efforts. — In-
fluence of the Emancipation upon the Reform of Parlia-
ment.— Agitation. — Motion for a Repeal of the Union. —
Death of George the Fourth. — His Reign, and its History.
The new Irish Representatives. — Sir Michael O^Loghlen.

The invalidity of his claim had been no sooner decided
by parliament, than Mr. O'Connell addressed himself to the
electors of Clare, calling upon them for their suffrages. He
commenced by informing them that the House of Commons
" had deprived him of a right which the people of Clare
had vested him with," and then recapitulated the objects he
would have in view, if returned, and the interests of the
country in having him in Parliament. In conclusion, he
noticed one or two objections which had been advanced to
his election, and, amongst others, this:

" It has been said that I am a stranger in Clare. Me a
stranger in any part of Ireland ? Foolish and absurd ! I
am identified with the people of Clare in everything that
can identify man to man. All however, I can claim, is the

* Throughout this discussion the term "Relief" is used as synony-
mous with Emancipation.
11#

126

ratification of the former election. I ask only the sympathy
of Clare upon the vacancy ; I have a title to that sympathy
by the community of interest, and generous feeling and
exalted resolves."

A bill had been brought in, the previous February, by-
Secretary Peel, to suppress the Catholic Association, and it
had been passed almost without opposition, the agitators
having been given to understand, than by such a sacrifice
alone could majesty be propitiated or the ministry recon-
ciled to the bitter necessity of their late concession. But
no sooner had Mr. O'Connell again announced himself for
the field, than an " aggregate meeting " was held in the As-
sociation room, addressed by the Association orators ; and
after a merry meeting, they voted from the funds of the
Association £5000 towards defraying the expenses of a new
canvass in Clare. This appropriation was zealously op-
posed by Mr. Eneas McDonnell, then a prominent advocate
of Catholic claims, but who has been ever since a confirmed
opponent to the just demands of his country.

The second Clare election possessed little of the dramatic
interest of the first. Mr. O'Connell "walked over" unop-
posed, and delivered to his supporters one of his most tran-
chant and successful speeches. There was great festivity
in Ennis, and his route homeward to Dublin was a pro-
longed ovation, creditable to the people, and worthy of his
gigantic services.

It is well to pause here, and looking upon the char-
acter of the times, especially the condition of the British
Empire, to consider what place amongst reforms the mea-
sure of Emancipation ought justly to hold, and in what rank
amongst the political benefactors of mankind the name of
O'Connell deserves to be placed.

It was not alone within the bounds of the British Empire
that this greatest triumph of our age was felt by all, and
joyously received by those who sought freedom of con-
science. Hitherto, in Europe, since the days of the " Eefor-
mation," religious toleration had been a mere name — a thing
all pretence, and of no real existence. Catholic and Pro-
testant governments were almost equally coercive on con-
science. At the head of the first stood France ; the leader
of the second was England. In nearly every country which
ranged under these separate banners, the spirit of political
reform had been at work, but not a few had mistaken the

127

wild impulse of innovation for a desire to extend just prin-
ciples. The famous congress of Vienna, in 1815, had re-
fastened legitimacy upon the necks of Europeans; and its
rulers, freed from the awful presence of Napoleon, pressed
heavier bonds and obligations upon their subjects. The ter-
rible discipline they had received from the hands of a Cor-
sican Plebeian, on a thousand fields, where they appeared but
to retreat, had left much more of the irritation of defeat than
the experience of adversity behind it. Within a period of
fifteen years there were attempts at revolt in nearly all the
countries of the continent, which kept their worships of the
" Holy Alliance " pretty busy. Old constitutions died giv-
ing birth to new each successive year. In 1816, by a peace-
ful and voluntary effort, the constitution of the papal states
was abrogated to make way for one much more liberal ; a
similar attempt at reform had been forcibly suppressed in
Naples, some time after, by the overwhelming power of an
Austrian army. The Peninsula was the scene of other
and more violent attempts at change. Portugal was once
more ruled by a Braganza, under the title of John VI., who
granted, on his return from exile, an improved constitu-
tion to his subjects, whilst his son, Don Pedro, whom he
had left behind in Brazil, assumed, without the knowledge
of his father, the title of Emperor of that province, with the
consent of the people. Spain was not spared in this visi-
tation of nations. In 1820 the new constitution was pro-
claimed, but very much to the dissatisfaction of the patriot
party, who still remained in arms. Ferdinand sought aid
of France, and the Due D' Angouleme, son of Charles X.,
crossed the frontier to the support of absolute monarchism,
with an army of seventy thousand men. The fields of the
Peninsula, rifted and seared with the thunderbolts of France,
of England, and the allies, had not yet felt the restoring
influence of peace, when a new campaign again broke over
their deathly stillness. The story of that \var of indepen-
dence is briefly sad ; — Ballesteros was forced to submit ;
Reigo, in spite of the royal pledge, was put to death, and
Mina was driven into exile. The rising in Piedmont fared
a similar fate with that of Spain. The armed interference
of Austria flung its leaders into the dungeons of Milan,
where many of them lingered out life in an unremitted soli-
tary confinement. In England, the spirit of change had
taken a different shape, but not a less active existence, from.

128

the same stimulating causes. In 1819 occurred the Man-
chester massacre, in which five hundred persons were mu-
tilated by the bayonets of a ruthless soldiery, abetted and
led on by the magistracy of the place. This event occur
red on the 16th of August, in open day : a vast assemblag<
of between forty and sixty thousand persons having assem
bled to hear a speech from Mr. Hunt, a favorite orator of the
democracy. In the following year the death of Henry
Grattan"^ and of George HI. materially affected, in theii
results, the cause of reform ; but the return of Queen Caro-
line to England, and her memorable trial for adultery, be-
fore the House of Lords, gave to the popular party new and
formidable advantages, which they failed not to employ to
the best advantage against the ministry and the court. The
Cato-street conspiracy, for which Thistlewood and five
others suffered death — the death of Bonaparte — the suicide
of the Marquis of Londonderry, (Lord Castlereagh,t) and

* It is not sufficient that the name of Mr. Grattan should be men-
tioned in connection with the early progress of the Catholic question.
For forty-five years, in the parliaments of both kingdoms, he had been
the strenuous advocate of the largest liberty of conscience. Indepen-
dent of his great claims on Ireland, as the father and defender of her
constitution, he added another paramount to these by his untiring
efforts, through a long series of years, to secure the abolition of the
penal laws. Mr. Grattan M'-as born in 1750, and commenced his public
career at the age of twenty-five. His father had been Recorder of Dub-
lin, and was one of that influential family of whom Dean Swift said,
in answer to an inquiry of who they were — " Not know the Grattans !
Why, they could raise an army at their bidding." Mr. Grattan was
educated at "old Trinity," admitted to the bar in 1772, where it does
not appear that he practised, and entered the Irish Commons under the
patronage of Lord Charlemont, in 1775. In 1805 he became a member
of English Parliament, and died in 1820, having served forty years in
both legislatures. " The style of his speaking," says his patriotic
son, "was strikingly remarkable, — bold, figurative and impassioned,
always adapted to the time and circumstance, and peculiarly well
suited to the taste and temper of the audience that he had to address."

fThis man, whose name possesses such an infamous celebrity in
the latter history of Ireland, was born in 1769, educated at Cambridge,
and entered the Irish parliament in his twenty-first year, as member
for the county of Down. He w^as then an ardent reformer ; but the
fire of his enthusiasm soon exhausted itself, and in 1797 he was ap-
pointed chief secretary of Ireland. By the application of upwards of
two millions of pounds sterling in the purchase of votes, and hav-
ing secured the populace by martial law, and the suspension of the
habeas corpus act, he effected the long desired object of his em
ployers — the legislative extinction of Ireland, As a reward for thif

129

the death of Queen Caroline, were the chief domestic inci-
dents which gave zest to public life in England, and topic
to the advocates of Reform, previous to 1830. On the con-
tinent, the spirit of change seemed still at work ; the Penin-
sula and France were still the theatres of its most active
operations, and even at this day the public mind of these
countries is troubled and restless ; nor can a reasonable an-
ticipation be formed of where the commotions ever since
going on may end.

I have taken this partial glance at the political state of
Europe, in order that the reader may more readily compre-
hend the value of that great concession which was accom-
plished without bloodshed, and retained without force.
We are entering upon a new age, and the contemplation
of that immediately preceding cannot be an irksome or
useless task. The age of Napoleon was an age of revo-
lution, in the wildest signification of that extensive phrase.
It was an age, also, of terrible physical conflicts, by which
the good effected was marred, while the evils attacked
were only strengthened, and driven more deeply into the
soil. The stimulating spirit of France was blindly aggres-
sive— that of England recklessly conservative. The one,
after trampling scores of old thrones beneath her feet, took
back her own, and its tenant, the alms of an invading army
of sovereigns ; the other, after being the champion of every
royal race in Europe — the griffin sitting at the portal of
legitimacy — found herself repaid by an enormous debt, and
honored with the fears and jealousies of her proteges. The
character of the masses bore some resemblance to their
respective governments ; — in France, an insurrection was
the work of a week, equally brief and bloody ; in Britain,
it was the long matured exercise of popular strength, care-
revolting conduct, he was appointed Minister of War in 1805. In
1811, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs; in 1814 was Minister
Plenipotentiary to the allied powers, and in the following year repre-
sented Great Britain in the congress of Vienna. In 1821, he suc-
ceeded his father as Marquis of Londonderry, but did not long enjoy
that title, having committed suicide on the 12th of August, 1822. As
a statesman he was subtle, wary and consummately politic ; one
every way fitted to play the game of diplomacy with Talleyrand,
Pozzi di Borghi and Metternich. In Irelai;d his name will be immor-
tally odious ; but England has many reasons to remember his abil-
ities, though few on which to assert his integrity, or to recall his
name with satisfaction.

130

ful of the good, while destroying the ohnoxlous features of
legislation. The stability of the measures thus established
have shown themselves durable or transient, according to
the haste or caution with which they were concocted and
carried.

The much-needed measure of a reform in Parliament
had long been a favorite object with the whig party in
England. In this they were latterly sustained by the
radical reformers, or more ultra advocates of popular rule.
To the former class belonged Fox, Sheridan, Grattan, Lord
John Russell, and other eminent commoners. Sir Francis
Burdett, and Mr, (now Lord) Brougham, were the chief
radicals in the House of Commons ; while Sir Charles
Wolsey, William Cobbett, Mr. Hunt, and a few others, were
conspicuous in the "out-of-door" work. This coalition,
however, was marred by contentions and recriminations ;
and many of the earliest friends of reform went down to
the grave, seeing the cause as far from the goal of fulfil-
ment, as they had found it half a century before. During
the emancipation debates, the whigs were steady, and the
radicals ardent friends of the Catholics. Both, therefore,
justly anticipated additional strength from the passage of
that measure. This expectation was not disappointed.

Early in the session of 1830, Mr. O'Connell took his
seat with the opposition, in the English Commons. There
had been much speculation as to the course he would prob-
ably pursue in Parliament — some supposing that he would,
like Malone, content himself with one great triumph, and
spend his days in indolent repose ; while others more justly
predicted a continuation of the career of agitation, by which
he had already accomplished more than two hundred years
of argument had been able to effect. These last found
their supposition fully realized. The passage of the eman-
cipation bill had been always regarded by Mr. O'Connell,
a measure as much preliminary as positive in its operation.
It was necessary to secure freedom of worship, and easier
at the same time, than to effect the freedom of corporations,
the spread of the franchise, or a repeal of the Union. In
agitating for it, the altar became a rostrum, and the conse-
crated of God, a popular adviser ; the awful paraphernalia
of religion surrounded every effort of the Catholic leaders,
and her superhuman voice penetrated to the lowest deep in
the depth of Irish slavery. But conscience being unfet-

131

tered, the people began to survey their actual temporal
condition, their deprivation of learning, their disfranchised
freeholders, their unemployed millions, their wasting re-
sources, their enormous taxations and tithes. In the midst
of these minor evils which glared upon the country, there
arose one of greater dimensions and more chilling presence
— the absence of their old Parliament. It was a matter of
policy on the part of the victorious leaders of the people,
whether they should aim first at the greatest grievance, in
whose fall all minor ones were to be crushed to pieces, or
whether they should demolish the outworks before they
opened upon the main fortress. They decided on the first,
but, four years afterwards, changed their tactics, and have
since then zealously and successfully labored to repeal the
tithe rent charge — to open the close boroughs of the Irish
corporations — to extend municipal reform — to provide for
the national education and for the poor ; until at present
they draw up once more, in augmented and experienced
numbers, before the grand bulwark of foreign domination
in Ireland — the act of Union.

The question of a Repeal of the Union was warmly ad-
vocated by Mr. O'Connell, by Shiel, and many other of the
veteran emancipators. The cry of " Independence, or else

" rang through the atmosphere as of old, and was

met with counter shouts of separation and ascendancy, as
it had been before. Alas ! how often had Ireland come up
to the struggle for nationality ! With what wary and
almost fearful steps, she had climbed the brow of that
precipice, though laden with penal irons. Her old Milesian
leaders had fled the land with the eclipse of the Stuart star
— men of bold hearts and lusty arms, who brooked no
union in substance or in name — whose swords had written
in blood their protests against and hatred of English ty-
ranny, on Beal-an-ath-Buidhe, on Kinsale, and Aughrim.
In the darkness of the succeeding night, another heroic
race, of different lineage and temper, of another creed and
name, stood up her advocates and champions. Molyneaux
and Swift, Lucas and Malone, Yelverton and Grattan,
sought to supply the stead of those hereditary leaders,
whose birth, accomplishments, and creed, once gave them
sovereign sway over the hearts of the millions. But with
O'Connell, the Milesian and the Catholic leadership had
been revived ; and not the great Tir Owen was more for-

132

midable to Cromwell's schemes, than was he to that other
iron subject, and almost sovereign tyrant— the victor of
Waterloo. But though a great triumph had been won, a
yet greater was to be commenced. The public purse had
been well taxed of late in the service of agitation ; the
public mind had been harassed with alternating hopes and
fears; and, as it was necessary to call forth every energy
of the people, Mr. O'Connell resolved not to summon them
ere they could safely come into the field.

With this wise project, in which he had the concurrence
of his ablest friends, he started the ' National Union Asso-
ciation," which was to operate in favor both of Reform and
Repeal, and to preserve intact the machinery of future
movements. This body was located at Dublin, and was
chiefly composed of the same persons who successively
assumed the titles of the " Liberal Club," " Precursor
Society," etc., until at length they have chosen to abide by
that of the "Loyal National Repeal Association."

O'Connell had been in Parliament but a few weeks when
George the Fourth died, in the 63d year of his age, and
the 10th of his reign. This event occurred on the 26th
day of June, 1830. Within his regency and reign occurred
many of the most important events of modern history; with-
in his life-time, the great empire over which he held the
sceptre began to settle down into a reasonable and compact
body. A huge limb had been lopped off by the treaty of
Paris, but the pruning knife of Franklin sent back the sap
of strength to the old trunk of many branches. Great
Britain lost much of continental influence towards the close
of his reign ; Russia, under Alexander, became her formi-
dable rival in the North and East, while France, emerged
from her trials and her costly triumphs, with an insignificant
national debt, an abundance of experience, and possessed of
a new generation of ministers, who, from dining beneath the
Damoclean sword of revolution, had outgrown the volatility
of their nation. She had lost also much of her German in-
fluence ; and for all the blood spilt upon the Peninsula, she
had not acquired one solitary concession. The opposite to
all this, she had been in the middle of the last century, be-
fore George the Third became a driveller, or Edmund Burke
a tory. But when Chatham was laid with his fathers, an
obscure Corsican outwitted and browbeat her armies and
her cabinets ; showing to continental Europe that England

133

was neither invincible in arms nor infallible in diplomacy.
In his mission he was a teacher of kings. To him a Guelph
was no more than a Bourbon or a Branganza ; he scourged
them all with rigorous impartiality. His ships were
freighted with kingly emigrants, and his strides, like those
of Asmodeus, were from one dwellmg of corruption to
another — from St. Marks to the Krenuin, from the Escurial
to St. James'. He broke down in his wonderful career the
ascendant fame of England's prowess, which it had taken
Marlborough a life-time to establish upon land, and Nel-
son many victories to ratify on the ocean ; and though, in
his turn, he was defeated, his demonstrations on this head
are yet unforgotten in the councils of the continent.

O'Connell has been within the empire what Bonaparte
had been without. Its rulers prided themselves equally as
much upon being the political champions of Protestantism
as on being the regulators of the " balance of power." Two
insular plebeians, one born in Corsica, and the other in
Ireland, snatched the " flattering unction from their souls,"
and straitened them into those reforms which never would
have been voluntarily enacted. The reign of George the
Fourth, in seeing the consummation of those things, saw a
mighty change, and the parent of other changes greater
than the first.

The new Irish members, chosen in consequence of the
passage of the Catholic Emancipation bill, were chiefly men
who had been connected with the agitation of that question,
although the majority of their members were of the Protest-
ant religion. O'Gorman Mahon was elected for an Eng-lish
borough, Maurice O'Connell for Tralee, Mr. Eonayne for
Clonmel, Mr. Lawless was nominated but not elected for
Meath, Mr. Shiel was elected for Tipperary, and Sir Mi-
chael O'Loirhlen for Dunsfarvan. AH these were g-ood men
and true, and, with some few faults, such sons as their
country might well pride in.

The last name goes to the heart of every true Irishman.
It was borne by one of the purest souls that ever moved
over, or improved this earth by its presence. It beat with
unvarying ardor for Ireland, and the image of O'Connell was
erected within its most sacred recesses. It were guilt to
pass over the history of such a name, for, in politics as in
law, it is one of the most truly honorable of the age.

Sir Michael O'Loghlen, as Master of the Rolls, was ad-
12

134

mitted by all parties to be a judge of unblemished impar-
tiality, application, and sagacity. Few characters, in a par-
tizan land like Ireland, are so difficult of attainment as this ;
there has not been a dozen in the past and present century
to whom it can be justly given. Whigs at the bar have
been whisfs on the bench, and tories in the courts have been
tories still, whether dressed in stuffs or ermines. To make
the judgment-seat honorable in the eyes of good subjects,
to rescue the laws from the disrepute to which mal-admin-
istration had brought them down, to blend the avenger's
with the guardian's character, was reserved for one of the
people, by birth, descent, religion, education and feeling.
That man was Michael O'Loghlen. From his infancy he
seemed born for a high mission. Patient, retentive and
mild, without strong passions, always animated and cheerful,
kind and inviting in his exterior, penetrating and observant,
firm as a rock in the maintenance of his probity. When a
boy at school, it was remarked by his teacher that he never
appeared in the sports of other scholars, and having watched
him one day after the usual dismissal, he found that instead
of going out at the appointed time, he conveyed himself
under the benches, and when all was restored to quietness,
resumed his seat and book. The teacher, who was a man
of the Bonycastle school, and could hardly forgive even such
disobedience, called for the culprit when all the classes were
reassembled, and demanded of him where he was when
they were dismissed. " I was hiding, sir," was the manly
reply. It is unnecessary to say he went unpunished.

Sir Michael O'Loghlen, born on the 1st of October, 1789,
was the fourth and youngest son of Colman O'Loghlen, a
Justice of the Peace who resided at Port, Co. Clare, and
traced his blood through royal veins to the " Princes of
Burrin." His son inherited with his blood a portion of heral-
dic vain-glory, of which he gave a remarkable proof when,
as Sergeant O'Loghlen, he contested the borough election
of the city of Dublin. His opponents, Mr. Recorder Shaw
and Lord Ingestrie, were residents of the city, and they did
not hesitate to use, in its most unfriendly sense, the term
" stranger," toward the sergeant, who retorted with great
force, by repeating their expression — " Stranger ! " said
he, " why, they are the real strangers, and I, an O'Logh-
len, am the true native." At the age of twenty-two he
was called to the bar, but was not immediately taken

135

notice of. His personal appearance about that time is well
discribed by one who knew him. " His bright blue eye
continually sparkled, and gave his face a playful and juve-
nile appearance, while his bony and unruffled forehead,
broad and high, looked conscious strength and seren-
ity. He was then about that period of life when the ex-
tremes of age and ^'■outh meet, the sweet simplicity of one
with the ripened observation of the other ; and yet there
was a glowing and youthful freshness about him, which
seemed to defy the intrusion of advancing years. You
could not have looked a moment on him without being at-
tracted by the silver chord of sympathy — such a generous
play of cheerfulness in his countenance — such winning
condescension in his manners — such warmth and affection
in all he looked and uttered ! " ^

His first day of eminence was occasioned by an accident,
to him, at least, of a very fortunate nature.! He was em-

* Metropolitan Magazine, vol. v., page 74.

f Lord Eldon, also, it appears, owed his first success to an accident
somewhat similar, which is thus pleasantly related by Mr. Horace
Twiss :—

'' The following story is current at the bar, of Mr. Scott's (Lord
Eldon) first success on the circuit in a civil action. The plaintiff was
a Mrs, Fermor, who sought damages against the defendant, an elderly
maiden lady, named Sanstern, for an assault committed at a whist
table. Mr. Scott was junior counsel for the plaintiff, and when the
case was called on, his leader was absent in the Crown Court, con-
ducting a government prosecution. Mr. Scott requested that the
cause might be postponed till his leader should be at liberty, but the
judge refusing, there was no help, and Mr. Scott addressed the jury
for Mrs. Fermor, and called his witnesses. It was proved that at the
whist table some angry words arose between the ladies, which, at
length, kindled to such heat, Miss Sanstem was impelled to throw
her cards at the head of Mrs. Fermor, who (probably in dodging to
to avoid these missiles) fell or slipped from her chair to the ground.
Upon this evidence, the defendant's counsel objected that the case had
not been proved as alleged, for that the declarations stated the defen-
dant to have committed the assault with her hand, whereas the evi-
dence proved it to have been committed with the cards. Mr. Scott,
however, insisted that the facts were substantially proved according
to the averment in the declaration, of an assault committed with the
hand, for that in the common parlance of the card table, the hand
means the hand of cards ; and thus, that Miss Sanstem, having
thrown her cards in Mrs. Fermor's face, had clearly assaulted Mrs.
Fermor with her hand. The court laughed ; the jury, much diverted,
found the plaintiff's allegations sufficiently proved, and the young
counsel had the frolic and fame of a verdict in his favor." — Life of
Lord Eldon.

136

ployed as junior counsel to O'Connell in a trial of great im-
portance ; but it so happened that his leader had, on the
morning of trial, decamped to fight the ill-starred D'Esterre.
The case was called, and the bench peremptorily announ-
ced that it could not be postponed. Under this difficuky
O'Loghlen shook off his natural diffidence, and stood forth
the sole counsel of the clients. His age, appearance, and
habits of seclusion drew particular attention to his debut.

He commenced in a deprecating tone, which gradually
rose into a bolder and more assured enunciation ; the judges
shook their wigs in astonishment; the senior bar opened
their eyes, and his young colleagues of the outer bar were
audible in their approbation. Afier a masterly plea of two
hours, he sat down, and although there were ranged against
him some of the ablest and oldest men of the. four courts,
his case was triumphantly carried. From that hour his
reputation was established, and briefs accumulated on each
other, until his blue bag became one of the best filled that
was ever dragged or carried by a nisi prius lawyer.

In 1834 he was appointed Solicitor General, by the Mel-
bourne administration, and Avhile in that important station
effectually aided the Attorney-General, Perrin, in bringing
about a purer mode of administering justice than had existed
previous to their time of office. In 1835 he entered the Brit-
ish Parliament, where he was very successful as a debater, and
won for himself, in an incredibly short space, the reputation
of one of the best informed members and deepest thinkers
in that assembly. Towards the close of that year Mr. Per-
rin was exalted to the bench, and Mr. O'Loghlen became
Attorney-General for Ireland. During the two years in
which he continued in that onerous and laborious station,
the country presented a more peaceful aspect, than for many
years previous had characterized the rural districts. Crown
prosecutions were few and far between, and the odious habit
of setting aside jurors on account of their religious princi-
ples, became entirely extinct. From this sphere he was
still higher elevated to the office of Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer. This office he only held a few weeks, when the
death of Sir William McMahon leaving vacant the Master-
ship of the Rolls, it was offered to him, and was at once
accepted. Here then was a period to his promotions, though
not his honors ; he was afterwards created a baronet, and
continued to dispense justice in judgment until the summer

137

of 1842, when his health showing symptoms of decay, his
physicians advised him to try the air of England, for which
country he accordingly departed, leaving his lady and family
behind him in Dublin, promising, in his usual animated
manner, to return in a few months completely restored
But the glory of the judgeship was never again to sit upon
the throne of Justice ; the father was no more to sit de-
lighted amongst his happy family. About the middle of
September news reached his friends that he was suddenly
worse, and they were gently advised to expect that death
was inevitable. His eldest son, the present Sir Coleman,
set out immediately for London, but arrived too late — for,
on Wednesday evening, September the 28th, the just judge
had breathed his last. The following week his remains
were conveyed from Liverpool to Dublin, and from that
city, by slow stages, to the old family vault, at Ruan, Co.
Clare. The procession was everywhere the cause of the
most profound sorrow ; large bodies of grown persons
accompanied it from one village to another — shops were
closed, and laborers forgot their toil ; it was a unanimous
expression of national grief, honorable to the living, and
thrice honorable to the dead. It was an evidence of the
deep, the ineffacable gratitude of genuine Irish natures to a
benefactor.

As a judge, O'Loghlen seemed perfectly at ease on the
bench ; he despatched more business in a day than his pre-
decessors could in a week. McMahon had not quickness or
promptitude, and Curran had far too much of the sublimity
of sleepless fancy in his soul, for the place to which he was
appointed ; but the late judge was precisely such a man as
Justice herself would have selected to fill the office. Had
emancipation secured no other benefits to Ireland than hon-
ors for one such mind and heart, it would have deserved her
gratitude.

Sir Michael married in 1811, being then in his 22d year,
and for thirty-one years lived in a domestic millenium, such
as rarely falls to the lot of public men. He was the father
of six or seven children, all of whom, with his amiable lady,
have survived him.
12#

138

CHAPTER TEN.

Irish Transactions^ from 1830 to '34. — The Reform Bill. —
The Abolition of Tithes demanded. — The Coercion Bill. —
Mr. Wyse and National Education. — Dr. Doyle and the
Poor-Laws. — Continuation of the Repeal Agitation. — -

Motion in ParliaineTit.

»

Hitherto our course, dear reader, has been all towards
one point — the great result of 1829. Having reached that
period of our sketching progress, we find many paths di-
verging, on all which the friends of Ireland have entered,
seeking some good for her people ; w^hile the Great Leader,
standing on the apex of his fame, far seeing, and speaking
with a monarch's voice, directs, encourages, and controls
these various undertakings. No day passes into night until
he has cast some sunshine and blessing on the land of the
West. To write a diary of his correspondences, speeches,
and journeys, would require the pen of one of those strong-
handed chroniclers, who, before the birth of Guttemberg,
transcribed with precision every syllable of the great Chris-
tian code, and whole volumes of ancient authors. From-
the moment of the passage of the emancipation bill, we find
him, the ambassador of all Ireland when abroad, and the
monarch of all Ireland when at home. He had obtained
the power and popularity of Washington, but there had not
as yet come a time, when he could honorably have returned
the influence and its responsibility, to those who had in-
vested him therewith. Condemned to the hard labor of
command, he entered upon it with that brisk and buoyant
temper, and religious fortitude, which hath ever marked
his career from the vulgar herd of prosperous politicians.
These alone could have been his support through the
scenes that awaited him — wherein false friends laid in
ambush, and concealed enemies raised unfounded alarms —
in which he was to encounter deception, ingratitude, malice,
and treachery, in all their protean shapes of hideousness —
in which old bonds of friendship were to be rudely rent,
and new ones broken in their first trial — in which all were

139

to desert him save the clergy, the people, and his own
indomitable spirit. The first desertion was that of the
"moderate" emancipationists, who considered the achieve-
ment of that measure a sufficient boon for one generation to
grow thankful upon. These wheeled off, in a slow pha-
lanx, from all future connexion with him who had restored
them to the rights of conscience. Then followed individual
desertions of pragmatical subalterns, anxious to gain a tem-
porary notoriety by bearding their great leader — of honest,
but crochety minds, who could only see plainly in one
direction, whilst every other view seemed full of dangers,
traps, and precipices, to their wry optics — of insidious and
intriguing place-hunters, who felt uncomfortable beneath
his penetrating eye, with pliant patriots of noisy speech,
whose fiery irruptions had long before exhausted their lava-
like vehemence, and were no longer anxious to devour cities
or nations in their wrath, — all these found their policy in
capitulation, and learned to fear or hate the gallant chief
who resolved to keep the field while one fortress of invasion
was still possessed by the enemy. But, thank God ! we
have not undertaken to treat of Mr. O'ConnelPs enemies,
which would be, in good truth, a herculean task, but rather
to string together some memorial of those good and emi-
nent men who were his assistants, admirers, or friends, and
of the events in which they showed their patriotism and
fidelity.

The year of our Lord 1831, was a busy year for the
statesmen of the British empire. Although many occur-
rences of great importance to Ireland took place in that
year, the magnitude of the reform-bill agitation, in some
^ort overshadowed all other topics of the time. The perti-
nacious and long-continued hostility of the Tories towards
the people drove the latter to desperation, and the spirit of
agrarian outrage blazed over hamlets and cornfields, destroy-
ing alike the habitations of the wealthy, and the sustenance
of the poor. The breach was completed on the 7th of
October, by the rejection of the reform bill in the House of
Lords. The reception of this intelligence caused the most
alarming symptoms of insurrection all over the country — in
several of the cities the muffled bells of the churches tolled —
noonday mobs rioted in the streets — the ministers' carriages
were arrested in London, on their way to the Parliament
House — even the services of the Duke of Wellington could

140

not shield him from the hisses of the populace. Eoyal
proclamations were torn down from the very gates of the
palace — and the soldiery partook of the disgrace of their
king, and were everywhere treated with the greatest indig-
nity. The twenty-one bishops who voted against the meas-
ure, were unmercifully caricatured — the Bishops of Carlisle
and Durham, and Dr. Phillpots, incurred peculiar odium ;
their effigies were repeatedly burned in various parts of the
kingdom. A new ministry had been formed in August, of
which Earl Grey was premier ; Mr. Brougham, with a title,
Lord Chancellor ; Lord Althorp, as Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, was leader of the House of Commons ; and Mr.
Stanley, {then an ardent reforming whig, but now Lord
Stanley, a confirmed tory,) was made Secretary for Ireland.
All the members of the new cabinet were pledged to reform,
and on coming into power, Earl Grey and his friends lost
no time in redeeming their promises to the people. The
most important indication of their anxiety to meet the ques-
tion was in the speech from the throne, on the dissolution
of Parliament, in the following November, wherein his
Majesty cordially recommended it to the earliest considera-
tion of Parliament, in the ensuing session. But their aims
were thwarted once more, by the bloated lords of the blood-
stained establishment, and that inflexible old man, who,
more than any other, might have served the cause of liberty
in Europe — the Duke of Wellington — he, the most power-
ful subject of the age, the most fortunate and the least gen-
erous, once more chained the honest hands which were
assiduously tearing up the foundations of the rotten borough
system. Within six months there was a double change of
ministry ; but at last, in the spring of 1832, the English and
Scottish reform bills were carried through both houses, and
received the royal assent. There was a nine-day jubilee
and great rejoicing throughout the land ; the torch of the
incendiary was quenched, and the two great classes of the
people began to regard each other with greater inward re-
spect, if not with more apparent cordiality. The Catholics
of both houses were undoubtedly the class who carried this
measure ; for out of the many commoners who were elected
in consequence of emancipation, but one voted against it ;
while in the upper house, but one Catholic peer was found
to oppose it. Thus passed a measure which had been
agitated ever since the revolution, which previous to that

141

time had given many a proud head to the block; aye, which
brought even a monarch's thither, and one worth a thousand
of the world's kings — the ill-fated, noble Russell. The work
began by the stout barons at Runnymede, which stood, half
finished and crumbling from exposure, during three hundred
years of Protestant supremacy, was now completed by the
hands of those who held the same faith as its illustrious
founders. Old Sarum was blotted out — ^borough-mongering
was no more, and that barrier with which Chatham, Fox,
and Romilly struggled in vain, gave way before the muscu-
lar strength of a plebeian Irishman and his co-religionists.

As was but just, O'Connell and his friends expected
reciprocal aid from the English and Scottish members, who
had gladly accepted his alliance to accomplish reform for
themselves, in his attempts to carry through an adequate
Irish reform bill. But many of these worthies had no such
notions — they still wished to have one law for one side of
the channel, and another for the other ; so that having ob-
tained all their desires, they came unwillingly and partially
to the support of their late assistants. The Grey ministry
also showed great reluctance to extend the boon to Ireland —
and when at last they stretched their condescension so far
west, it was with so stunted a grace, that it seemed more
like an insult than a right conceded. The Scottish reform
bill had been introduced by the Lord Advocate, a Scots-
man— the English reform bill had been given to the charge
of Lord John Russell, an Englishman ; but the Irish reform
bill was presented by Mr. Stanley, who was even then no
lover of the land, and had been more than once censured
for his anti-Irish feelings. It lingered many months after
the others were carried — was maltreated and mutilated in
committee, until, like Scott's Palmer, its parent would scarce
have known his child ; it was spat upon by lay lords, kicked
oat by the holy fathers in the upper house, and after several
months of clipping, hair-splitting, and re-touching, the ill-
proportioned thing was at length presented to royalty
towards the close of 1832, and received King AVilliam's
assent. And the result of all this was, that Ireland got an
increased representation of five members !

The Emancipation struggle had hardly closed when the
abolition of tithes began to be publicly advocated, to the no
small alarm of the mitred Nebuchadonezzars, who browsed
upon the wide-spread glebe lands of Ireland. The exces-

142

sive tyranny of tithes was never so completely exemplified as
in the system inflicted upon Ireland, for the maintenance of
the law church. A few proofs of the enormity of this sys-
tem cannot but strike terror to the soul of him who is favor-
able to a church-and-state alliance in any degree. "It is on
record," says an intelligent author, " that three bishops, in
fifteen years, left £700,000 to their families. A bishop of
Clogher went to Ireland without a shilling, and after eight
years died, worth £400,000. The bishop of Cloyne, who
died in 1826, left £120,000 to his children ; and a Welsh
bishop, who died recently, although his bishopric was called
a poor one, left £100,000.

" By the probates at Doctors' Commons, it appeared in
1828, that the personal property of twenty-four bishops who
had died within the preceding twenty years amounted to
the enormous sum of £1,649,000, an average of nearly
£70,000 for each bishop. This was the sworn value of
the personal property only, and some of the bishops are
known to have had very large possessions in real property.
Now, we will venture to assert that in no other profession
will it be found that so large an average of wealth has been
left by the heads ; take the twenty-four last generals, the
twenty-four last admirals, the twenty-four last judges, nay,
the twenty-four last merchants, and their personal property
will not equal that of the bishops, nor approach it.

" Nor have they been at all particular as to the mode of
amassing their wealth. The Earl of Bristol, when Bishop
of Derry, realized £4,000 a year, by the ingenious practice
of buying up old church leases, holden under himself, and
granting new ones for fines, of course, considerably larger
than the sums he thus paid. Whether this practice has
been continued we know not ; but as there is no law to pre-
vent it, very large profits might be made by it.'"^

The next, is a yet greater proof of the avaricious charac-
ter of the Irish law church. Mr. Grattan, on the 12th
of July, 1842, produced, in the House of Commons, in a
debate touching this subject, the following extracts, from tho
probate of wills in Ireland, by which it appears that,

Fowler, Archbishop of Dublin, 1-eft, at his death,£150,000
Beresford, Archbishop of Tuam, .... 250,000
Agar, Archbishop of Cashel, 400,000

•■* Book of the Poor Man's Church.

143

Stopford, BishjpofCork, 25,000

Percy, Bishop of Dromore, 40,000

Cleaver, Bishop of Ferns, 50,000

Bernard, Bishop of Limerick, 60,000

Porter, Bishop of Clogher, 250,000

Hawkins of Raphoe, 250,000

Knox of Killaloe, 100,000

Total, £1,575,000

From a publication of undoubted veracity, we select the
following statistics, in proof of this heinous rapacity of the
Anglican-Irish church.

There are benefices in the Irish Church, . . £1,556
One of which (in the co. Down) is worth per an., 2,800

Ten, between £2,000 and 2,600

Twenty, 1,500 « 2,000

Twenty-three, 1,200 " 1,500

Forty-eight, 1,000 " 1,200

Seventy-four, 800 " 1,000

One hundred and forty-eight, ... 600 " 800
Four hundred and eighty-one, . . 400 " 600
Three hundred and eighty-six, ... 300 " 400
Four hundred and sixty-five, ... 30 " 200
Number of acres, 669,257

If we estimate the acres, continues our authority, at £1
per acre, it will yield £660,257, for the Bishops' lands
alone. There are also 13,603,473 acres of land subject to
tithe, all of which is a grievous tax upon the poor, either in
the shape of rent charges or otherwise.

The report of the commissioners state that in Ireland
there are one hundred and fifty-one parishes having no
member of the Church of England, and eight hundred and
sixty parishes having less than seventy-seven Protestants.

Parliamentary grants since the Union in 1800, in Ire-
land : —

For building Protestant churches, . . . £525,371

For building glebe-houses, 336,889

For Protestant charity schools, .... 1,105,867
For Church Society to discountenance vice, 101,991
For Kildare Place Society, 170,502

Total, £2,310,662*

* Black Book for 1844.

144

On these and similar facts, equally strong and unanswer-
able, those of the emancipators who still retained a love for
agitation, founded an Anti-Tithe party, which finally re-
duced the magnitude of the evil, and divided the remainder,
in shares between the landlord and tenant. But this great
good could not be accomplished legally without much per-
severing exertion, although if ever people had cause to take
to themselves vengeance, it was in the war against tithes.
In 1830 and '31, elated by their past triumph, they began
systematically to oppose their collection ; a few bailiffs were
pitchforked, and some peasants transported, at first. But
the men of God waxed warm in the conflict ; they resolved
to come out against the Philistines, and to smite them hip
and thigh, from the rising to the setting of the sun. The
cassock was flung by, and their reverences, at the head of the
police, scoured the country, laid siege to dairies, and carried
off the scanty bed-clothes of the poor, with the most distin-
guished gallantry. One Parson Blood (a fitting name) led
such a rabble in a broil at Skibbereen, county Cork, wherein
some few lives were taken. Newtownbarry, in Wexford, was
the scene of another massacre, in which from twenty to
thirty persons were killed on the spot or mortally wounded.
There was a young man sacrificed to the same desperate
spirit of avarice at Rathcormac, " and he was an only son,"
— like the dead youth of Nain, — "and his mother was a
widow." The dungeons of the prisons groaned with the
press of heroic martyrs, who declared it, as their fixed deter-
mination rather to rot in the humid cells with manacles
crushing their writhing frames, than to give sanction to so
odious a system, by obeying its executors. Many, unhap-
pily fulfilled the heroic vow, expiring in the companion-
ship of felons, —

"Alas, nor wife nor children more for to behold,
' Nor friends, nor sacred home !"

And while these poor victims grew stiff upon their iron
couches, the consecrated murderers who sent them there,
plied their sparkling wine, or played at hobby-horse in their
holy nunneries. O'Connell, of course, was one of the most
strenuous opponents of the tithe system. Shiel and Dr.
Doyle were found, as of old, by his side ; while Steele,
Lawless, Cobbett, and other able agitators, trod once more
the paths in which previously they had been so much

145

distinguished. In August, 183'1, was enacted Stanley's
Commutation Tithe Act, which reduced and re-formed the
impost, and became law in November, 1834. Lest, how-
ever, this concession should alarm the church usurious, it
was accompanied by an infamous coercion act, which was
enforced for two years with great rigor, and at its expira-
tion, in 1834, was attempted to be further extended by its
author, Mr. Stanley, who from this and other matters of
difference with his colleagues, resigned his seat in the cabi-
net and went over to the tories. The parsons were terri-
bly annoyed by the new commutation act ; they announced
their miseries and proclaimed aloud their starving condi-
tion ; nay, so far did they carry this beggar's opera or farce,
that they actually petitioned the treasury fur a loan of
<£1,000,()00 sterling to save them from utter destitution. A
grant of £900,000 was made, which was distributed to " the
hungry," in the following liberal proportions : —

£, s. d.

The Rev. Dr. Beaufort received, . . 2,463 4 5
The Hon. and Rev. George de la Poer

Beresford, 167 0 4

The same, 350 16 6

The Rev. G. D. Beresford, 215 18 4

The Rev. Marcus Gervase Beresford, . 1,053 14 4
The Bourkes — three of them Hon. as

well as Rev., 8,027 6 7

The Burghs, 1,195 16 8

The Butlers, 6,755 1 9

The Chichesters, 3,772 19 8

Dr. Cotton of Dublin, (three advances,) 4,080 19 3

The Crokers, 2,265 0 10

The Dawsons, 1,557 11 9

The Ebringtons, 3,612 7 0

Thirteen Hamiltons, 10,446 17 0

Six Knoxes, 2,581 4 5

Sir Harcourt Lees, 420 7 0

TenMoores, 5,329 17 5

Four Hon. and very Rev. Mahons, . 3,812 16 8

Two Ryders, of Rathcormac, .... 557 19 4
The Stephensons, one of them living

in Chester, 5,072 5 3

Five Hon., Ven., and Rev. Stopfords, 7,776 1 1
13

1,207 11 6

2,063 4 1

795 17 5

1,291 10 3

455 14 11

613 10 6

2,198 4 4

1,892 3 0

11 14 8

999 99 9

146

The St. Lawrences, (one of them Van.,) 3,114 6 6

Five Townsends, 2,681 10 3

Nine Trenches— Hon. and Yen., . . 7,710 13 7

Three Whittys,

The Archbishop of Cashel, . . .
The Dean and Chapter of Cashel,
The Lord Bishop of Clonfert, . .
The Lord Bishop of Cloyne, . .
The Dean and Chapter of Cork, .
The Lord Bishop of Ferns, . . ,
The Lord Bishop of Kildare, .
The Dean and Chapter of Kildare,
The Dean and Chapter of Killaloe,
The Dean and Chapter of St. Cenice,

Kilkenny, 588 13 6

The Vicars Choral, of Kilkenny, ... 48 7 8
The Vicars Choral of St. Finnbars, Cork, 1,552 15. 4
The Dean and Chapters and Vicars Choral

of Lishmore, 1,012 8 6

The Dean and Chapter of St. Patrick^ 910 2 10=^

This list contains the names of the wealthiest members
of the church of England's ministry — men of large patri-
monial inheritance, holders of rich pluralities, and non-
residents. In this manner the sum extorted from the public
pocket was meted out, to propitiate the incensed avarice of
these apostolic persons. Before we quit this subject for
a time, we cannot do better than append the following
proofs of the non-residence of some chief recipients of
this princely grant. The Book of the Poor Man^s Church
supplies us with these facts.

" When a parson is non-resident — when he can afford to
live in Dublin, or Bath, or Chester, or to roam about the
country as a clerical agitator — he is not to be reckoned
among those entitled to receive alms. But we find among
the clerical recipients forty residents in Dublin, exclusive
of the Rev. Charles Boyton, who is put down as living in
Dovea, in Letterkenny. Mr. Boyton's tithes were in
arrear for one year only, to the amount of £1089 ; and he
had an advance of £912. Was Mr. Boyton one of the

* Parliamentary Document 1834.

147

distressed ? We have not the least doubt, that many are
entered as resident clergymen, who are not so really ; for
we observe, in repeated instances, that the duty of small
livings is done by curates, when the rectors are said to be
on the spot. The famous Mortimer O'Sullivan is said to
reside at Killeman, Moy; but it does not appear that any-
body did the duty of his parish, while he was notoriously
tramping through England, on his missions of bigotry.
Several avowedly live in England; and among them we
note the Rev. Hans Hamilton, of Maida Hill, London, who
had £2,793 19s. Id.; and the Hon. and Rev. James S.
Segar, of the Circus, Bath, who was assisted to the amount
of £2,494 lis. 9d. So much as a specimen of the non-
resident claimants for relief."

Such was the tithe question in Ireland ten years ago ;
we will have need to mention it again.

Simultaneous with the agitation of the tithe abolitionists,
was another of great importance, though of less stirring
character ; I mean, the National Education movement, at
the head of which, in Parliament, stood Mr. Wyse, the
popular member for Waterford. This gentleman combined
with great dignity of character, talent of no ordinary de-
scription. He had been long a mourner over the havocs of
the penal laws ; by hereditary right he was a Catholic
agitator, and he had played no ignoble part in some of those
scenes which his pen has well commemorated."^ The
chief features in this movement were the withdrawal of the
grant long continued to the Kildare Street Society, which
from an educational had become a proselytizing institution
— the enlargement of the paltry grant to Maynooth Col-
lege, and the establishment of primary schools throughout
the country, on the Lancasterian model, without any attempt
to influence the religious views of the pupils. The benefits
of this latter plan could only be practical as far as the
commissioners appointed were faithful and diligent ; there
were those in Ireland, however, who resolved that they
should not slumber for need of some one to remind them
of their duty. Amongst the latter, the Bishop of Maronia,
now Archbishop of Tuam, was the most powerful sentinel
of the people. His eye saw every forthcoming danger,

* History of the Catholic Association,

us

every covert attack, and every insidious favor; and his
vigorous pen provided remedies against most of these evils,
aUhough, I believe, he never sanctioned the system, as a
whole. Chary as was the ministerial provision for the
education of the youth of Ireland, it was yet a benefit, the
first of the sort which the latter kingdom had ever received
from her proud step-sister, who, on this score, owes her an
awful retribution.

The Irish Catholic hierarchy, assembled in synod at
Dublin, in 1831, had agreed on two petitions to the impe-
rial Parliament — the one relating to the education of the
people, and the other asking a legal provision for the Irish
poor. It was admitted on all hands that great destitution
prevailed ; but, as usual, there were various remedial
theories. Mr. O'Connell demanded employment for the
able-bodied, and out-door relief for the old and infirm ; but
Dr. Doyle contended for a more safe and extensive system,
which should erect houses for its purposes, as was the
case in England. The famous letter of the latter, ad-
dressed to Mr. Spring Rice in 1831, had no small effect
upon the success of his project. To the reasoning of this
letter, Mr. O'Connell declared himself a convert, but he
afterwards recanted that profession, on which the Doctor
wrote him a short but severe rebuke. This, from him, the
great agitator received without retort, although time has
since vindicated the superiority of his design over that of a
legal provision. After a protracted agitation of ten years,
poor-houses, or bastiles bearing that name, have been
erected on the soil of Ireland, where the mendicants are
separated from each other — the husband from the wife, and
the child from its mother — where a bell tolls three times
per day, to call forth the skeletons to their scant and unsub-
stantial food, and three times more to command them back
to their tomb-like chambers. Such is the present Irish
Poor-law.

While these topics were being debated in and out of
Parliament, Mr. O'Connell and his friends ceased not for a
moment to strengthen, by every means within their reach,
the Repeal agitation. The many great wrongs of the
country afforded them weapons dangerous for an offensive
war. The ministry imagined they could close his lips by
allowing him the distinction of a King's Counsel, and fetter
him. with a silk gown. This — the only miniiJterial com-

149

pliment he ever accepted — was conferred upon him in No-
vember, '31 ; but so far from diminishing- his zeal, it but
added to^his desires to bring back the plundered Parliament
of '82. A similar mark of fai'or somewhat later was con-
ferred on Mr. Shiel, with a more pacific result. These
things gave to ardent repealers a pang of suspicion and
pain, but it passed away in a moment ; for O'Connell
regarded it as his right as a jurist, and continued to treat
the ministry as if nothing had occurred. His independence
galled them not a little ; and Earl Grey declared in the
House of Lords in '32, that " the effect of the government's
desire to conciliate Mr. O'Connell, was far different from
what they anticipated." This they had afterwards many
reasons to be reminded of, but on no other occasion more
strongly, than on the following. The scene which took
place upon the occasion of the motion for a repeal of the
Union, in 1834, is so well described by Mr. Huish, (who
was an eye-witness,) that I cannot refrain from giving a
portion of it here : —

" The mournful tones of the death-bell — the mercenary
indications of parochial regret — were sounding at intervals
from the steeple of St. Margaret's church, as we passed by
on our way to the House of Commons on the evening of
the 22d of April, the time appointed by Mr. O'Connell for
his proposition of a repeal of the Legislative Union ; and
we felt a kind of cheering presentiment conveyed to us
with each clang of the death-knell, so totally disassociated
with the idea of mortality which they were intended to
convey, that we involuntarily exclaimed, as we entered the
precincts of imperial legislation — ' that is the knell of the
ill-starred Union ! From this night its decline will com-
mence, and its dissolution will be as certain as that of the
nameless being, whose decease is now sought to be com-
municated by these dismal sounds.'

"Upon the eve of great events, trivial incidents often
serve to encourage or depress those whose feelings are in-
terested in the approaching result; and there is scarcely a
circumstance, however trivial, that will not influence a mind
excited by such a contemplation. The first discussion of
the question which involved the fate of the Irish nation,
was in itself an event sufficiently important to raise in the
minds of every person belonging to Ireland, emotions of the
13^

150

strongest nature. They were not, however, like those
which are experienced upon the eve of an expected crisis,
for every one felt that the fate of the Anti-Union cause was
not at stake in the impending discussion, nor was it to be
retarded by the defeat that the numbers on a division would
array against it. It was the manner in which it would be
discussed, not the circumstances under which it would be
denied, that was to be regarded — the overwhelming nature
of the host prepared to resist it, left no hope of encourage-
ment fi'om the latter, but the anticipations connected with
the effect of the former were cheering ; and accordingly,
the friends and advocates of Repeal waited the coming
struggle with that calm confidence which they who have
truth and justice on their side always feel when those pure
and eternal principles are about to be investigated. As
the hour approached for commencing the evening sitting
of the House of Commons, the lobby became a scene of
unusual bustle. The entire representation of the United
Kingdom was summoned for the occasion, and the members
crowded into the house at an early hour for the purpose of
securing seats for the night. A call of the House upon the
occasion of resistance to a motion of one of the opposition
members, was a circumstance sufficiently unusual to indi-
cate that the ministers regarded the question with no incon-
siderable degree of apprehension, and proved that they relied
more upon the strength of the numerical force which they
would parade against it, than the success of the arguments
and eloquence with which the principle of anti-unionism
would be resisted. The call of the House was therefore
an indication that Mr. O'Connell's motion was regarded as
one of those great occasions upon which the ordinary
attendance of members was not competent to decide, and
accordingly the summoned senate met en masse to hear and
dispose of the daring proposition.

" Public rumor had for some time bruited it about that
Mr. O'ConnelPs proposition was to be resisted in the
breach by Mr. Spring Rice, at the head of a strong column
of financial forces, and that the ambitious invader of impe-
rial power was to be overthrown by a few discharges of
vulgar arithmetic ; nay, it was also stated, that for several
months entire branches of the financial department were
busily engaged in preparing the materiel for the magnani-
mous Under Secretary, and that all he would have to do

151

to put an end to tke contest, was to meet the a^ault by a
judicious disposition of the principles of Cocker, and a
copious use of arithmetical, instead of oratorical figures.
He, therefore, as he tripped in and out of the house, be-
came an object of regard, as one to whom the important
duty of resistance was entrusted ; and, if we were to judge
by his demeanor, he seemed fully impressed with the con-
sequence which he seemed to derive from the occasion,

" O'Connell, for a few minutes, appeared upon the lobby.
He had been in the house all the time during which an.
election ballot was proceeding. He now came to the door,
as if he sought for some person in the crowd, A few per-
sons immediately surrounded him as he came out, but, with
his usual avoidance of common-place colloquy, he soon
broke from them and re-entered the house,

" The election ballot being terminated, the strangers were
admitted, and we soon found ourselves upon a bench under
the gallery, which gave us a full view of the entire assem-
bly. By a preliminary arrangement the members who had
repeal petitions were allowed to present them before the
order of the day would be called on, and accordingly a great
number from various parts of Ireland were rapidly given in
without any other preliminary than the reading of their
titles. Mr. Emerson Tennant was the only person who
brought up a petition from the anti-repealers, but when he
announced the nature of the document to the House a
simultaneous cheer seemed to break forth from both sides,
as if the solitary instance of Belfast was a triumphant coun-
terpoise for the heap of petitions of an opposite nature
which, at the time, seemed to cover the table. At length,
the monotonous formalities of presentation having termi-
nated, the Speaker, with his fine, sonorous voice, called out,
Mr. O'Connell. The mention of the name seemed like
' the chain of silence ' to produce an instantaneous attention ;
and the mover, rising from his seat, approached to the table
where he had previously placed some small portfolios con-
taining the extracts and documents with which he intended
to support his statement,

" We had seen him in almost all the various situations
which his extraordinary political career afforded. We had
seen him oftentimes haranguing conventions, where the
green valley was the arena and the vault of heaven the only
limit to the scene. We had seen him in all the variety of

152

positions which the arbitrary laws, passed on purpose to
counteract him, compelled him to adopt, and yet we felt
that the occasion which now found him about to address
the Imperial Senate afforded the greatest epoch of his life,
and whether the cause of which he is the great defender,
failed or prospered, that the twenty-second of April,
formed an era which cast upon his past existence a bril-
liancy, emanating from the grand and magnificent project
which he now stood up in the British senate to propose.
In that brief interval, which elapsed between the moment
when the Speaker pronounced his name and the sound of
the first words with which he began his address, an inde-
scribable sensation seemed to pervade the entire assembly.
The effect was not produced by any forethought of his
capability as a speaker, for the members were familiarized
with the style and manners of the orator who now stood
before them. Neither was it the effect of that expectation
which strangers feel prior to the opening words of some
speaker, whose fame has raised their anticipations of his
oratorical power. No ! — the associations connected with
the man, great and peculiar as is their nature, still they
were secondary at that moment. It was the cause — his
cause, and the consequences of its triumph with a misgiv-
ing in their own power to prevent it, that awed the boldest
of its predetermined antagonists, and produced the almost
breathless stillness which at that time pervaded the assem-
bled Senate. To the surprise of many persons present,
Mr. O'Connell commenced by relating an anecdote of an
honorable member who, in conversation with himself a few
days before, had said that the Canadas are endeavoring to
escape us — America has escaped us, but Ireland shall not
escape us. This exordium, although it produced a momen-
tary disturbance, seemed however to enforce a more reluc-
tant but still greater attention to his speech than if he had
opened in the ordinary manner, for it compelled the mem-
bers not to involve themselves with the sentiment of the
pre-determined gentleman, by betraying an unwillingness
not to listen to the case which he was goinq- to detail. He
reproved the first slight interruptions by a timely intimation
that it was too soon to begin them, which being accompa-
nied with the sanction of the injunrtional 'order, order,'
from the speaker, the assembly, with exemplary patience,
seemed to resign itself to the infliction, and yielding its

153

unwilling attention to the narration of English domination
and Irish endurance.

" The consciousness of having for an auditory a class of
persons whose interests and feelings are different, if not
even opposed to those which are cherished by the speaker,
is perhaps the greatest disadvantage that is to be encoun-
tered in public life, A promiscuous Eissembly will bear
down the efforts of the person that endeavors to inculcate
principles which are not held in general repute ; but, what-
ever allowances may be made for the madness of an asso-
ciation composed of heterogenous elements, no excuse
should be allowed in extenuation of such conduct in a dele-
gated and deliberative assembly. The consciousness even
of this disposition, without its overt action, is in itself suffi-
ciently embarrassing, for the speaker does not know at
what part of his address the latent hostility of his hearers
will rise against and compel him to retire. The attention
with which Mr. O'Connell was heard throughout his
address that night was evidently the effect of a discipline
which he has at last been able to enforce, chiefly by means
of the constant reproof with which he meets those manifes-
tations of his parliamentary unpopularity. The aversion
borne towards him by the great mass of the members pres-
ent, was chiefly indicated by their avoidance of any parti-
cipation in those occasional cheers which arose from a few
others, whenever any just or generous sentiment fell from
his lips, — sentiments which deserved to be applauded, and
to which perhaps, if they had heard them from any other
quarter, they would have responded with sincere acclama-
tions. O'Connell was encouraged by the cheers of the
Irish voices alone, and, as far as any symptoms of the per-
ception of his argument by any of the English members
present was concerned, his orations might as well have
been bestowed upon the inmates of a deaf and dumb asy-
lum. One solitary occasion, however, betrayed them into
something like a stir of vitality. It was at that part of his
speech where he bore testimony that military violence was
resorted to, in order to crush the efforts of the anti-Union-
ists, and described the meeting at the Royal Exchange,
which was entered by a military party. The reference to
the occasion was highly interesting. It afforded an irresist-
ible proof of the consistency of the speaker upon the ques-
tion he was advocating : and the occasion was alsX> distin-

154

guished by another circumstance to which, perhaps, the life
of any other public character does net supply a parallel.
Amongst various documents, that relate to the period at
which the Union was achieved, he read from Plowden's
History an extract of a speech made by himself upon the
foregoing occasion — his maiden essay upon Irish politics —
from which it appeared that, on the first proposition of the
Union, he gave it all the opposition that undistinguished
youth could command, and now that after an interval of
five and thirty years, he was still laboring, in the autumn
of his existence, to reverse that national calamity which
thus, in the opening of his remarkable and eventful life, he
had vainly endeavored to avert.

" It was evident, both from the nature and arrangement
of his speech, that, as he had declared in his exordium,
he spoke not for the present hour, nor adapted his language
to his present auditory, and he evidently treated those who
were to oppose him with a corresponding disregard. Anti-
cipating the species of evidence reserved by his opponents,
he haughtily taunted Spring Rice with the pettifogging
nature of the arithmetical logic upon whom he relied, to
refute the claims of a country containing eight millions of
inhabitants, for the resumption of her legislative indepen-
dence; and, observing Mr. Stanley taking a note during
the delivery of an important sentence, he suddenly paused
and said, that, * perceiving the Right Honorable Secretary
for the Colonies taking a note, he wished to afford him full
time to complete it,' and then proceeded. Upon another
occasion, alluding to Spring Rice, he inadvertently desig-
nated him the Hon. Member for Limerick, but, immediately
correcting the misnomer, he satirically repeated, with pecu-
liar emphasis, 'I beg Limerick''s pardon, I should have said
the Member for Cambridge.^

" The speech occupied five hours in delivery, and when,
at length, the mover had closed his last impressive sentence
and the clerk of the House read the resolution, we then
expected to have seen the son of Henry Grattan advance to
second its proposition, but we were somewhat surprised,
however, to hear that Mr. Fergus O'Conner had already
performed that office. The Speaker immediately pro-
nounced the name of Spring Rice, while a few vcfices called
' adjourn,' which conflicting propositions being reduced to
a motion, the ayes were declared adverse to the endurance

165

of the Under Secretary's eloquence for that night, and he
was therefore obliged to reserve his thunder for the next.

" A few minutes after five on the following evening we
found Spring Rice upon his legs as we entered the House.
He had just turned a few sentences upon the designs of
the mischievous agitators, which were intended to ensure
some encouraging cheers at the beginning of his course
and gain him confidence and courage to sustain the very
arduous service he had undertaken. With the exception
of Stanley, perhaps, the Treasury bench does not contain
one that would enjoy the ungracious task of vindicating
British domination over Ireland more than the Anglo-Irish
Under-Secretary. He brought to his aid the ultra virulence
of an Irish auxiliary under English pay, and entered upon
his duty with an effrontery that evidently arose from a con-
sciousness of the mercenary nature of his advocacy against
the cause of that country to which he nominally belonged.
Aware, however, that he was open to a reproval for this
desertion of all the obligations of nationality, he took an
opportunity of renouncing every association of country, and
having mentioned the name of Scotland, he artfully cor-
rected himself, and said North Britain, and then in a
parenthesis, he had the audacity to insinuate that he
wished the name of Ireland should also undergo a similar
mutation, and be distinguished in future geographical
arrangements as West Britain only. This shameless
admission was sanctioned by an applauding shout from the
' Gentlemen of England,' who, although they encouraged
the traitor, to serve their own purposes, must have secretly
despised the meanness that could thus unblushingly exult
in his own desrradation.

" Spring Rice possesses many of the requisites necessary
for a parliamentary speaker ; a fluent and graceful delivery,
a good voice, a facility of intonation, the command of copi-
ous and appropriate expressions, with a judicious arrange-
ment of language, enable him to sustain a much greater
consequence on the Treasury Bench in the House of Com-
mons than in the subordinate station he holds under his
Whig patrons at .the Treasury Board. He who is their
best defender, who, in the attributes of oratory is at least
their equal, takes his seat as their very humble servant and
secretary at Whitehall. The controversy upon Repeal,
which he had courted, was now commenced ; the cham-

156

pions of either side were in the lists, and Irish skepticism in
the indissolubility of the Union was to be reconciled by a
course of reasoning, wtiich, like the discussion of rival dis-
putants in matters of religious faith, generally was likely to
render that skepticism even more fastidiously attached to its
own opinion than it was before the controversy commenced.
Rival polemical disputants have mostly afforded unbelievers
some advantages, derived from the different extremities to
which they mutually drive each other; and the subject
which was now to be investigated was likely to afford those
who stood aloof from Unionism on one side, and simple
Repeal on the other, abundant material to strengthen and
confirm that speculation which they cherish, but have not
yet ventured to extend by precept. Spring Rice rushed
into the nature of the connection between the two countries
with a flippancy that deprived the important subject of
much of its supposed importance, and discussed interna-
tional interests in terms that considerably diminished pre-
conceived notions of the reciprocal advantages that both
England and Ireland enjoy from the compact of Union. I
am to describe, however, the incidents of the debate, and
the nature and tendency of the arguments used on both
sides. Mr. O'Connell had occupied five hours during the
delivery of his luminous and powerful address; and Spring
Rice, having the advantage of a day's preparation, made
himself up for a reply that should be equal to the service
for which it was intended, by being commensurate at least
in length ; and from the prolongation of his arguments to
a six-hour speech, it seemed as if his reliance was placed
more upon the length than the strength of his oratorical
production.

" On the conclusion of Lord Athorpe's speech, a number
of voices called upon O'Connell. It was evident that the
toleration of the house did not extend to the endurance of
another speech. Mr. Lalor and Mr. E. Ruthven both had
to give way to the inexorable rudeness that prevailed ; and
so impartial was the House in its determination to hear no
more, that the efforts of the Unionists and Anti-Unionists
were suppressed with equal promptitude. Mr. Shaw and
Mr. William O'Reilly were denied a hearing, as well as
the members for the Queen's County and Kildare. Mr.
O'Reilly was the last that essayed to speak ; and after he
had been permitted to deliver a few sentences, a voice

157

called out, in the most impatient tone, * O'Connell — O'Con-
nell I ' The member for Dundalk looked towards the quar-
ter from whence the voice proceeded, and said, 'I wish I
could find out the gentleman who called "O'Connell," and
I would keep him here all night, only that I would not like
to trespass upon the other members of the House.' It was
rather an extraordinary threat of punishment for one who
had so offended, and implied an acknowledgment of a very
unflattering nature. 'I will punish the person who has in-
terrupted me,' said the member for Dundalk, 'by compelling
him to listen to me ! '

" Mr. O'Dwyer, taking advantage of a pause in the storm,
attacked Mr. Shaw, whom he denounced as an agitator of
the. sinister school, which, coming at the close, relieved the
tedium of the debate by the dash of invective which he
infused into it. The patience of the collective wisdom, how-
ever, would endure no longer; a simultaneous summons
was given. O'Connell now approached to the table, and
there was silence. He had not delivered more than one
or two sentences, when we foresaw that his reply would
be equal to any of his foimer displays of eloquence; he
appeared to be now in the mood most favorable to the com-
mand of his peculiar powers. A degree of fierceness, tem-
pered with levity, rendered him merciless in invective, and
irresistible in ridicule to those who had provoked his retali-
ation by their personalities in the preceding debate. Ani-
mated almost to a degree of exultation, he seemed proud
of the success that his motion had attained, and the great
importance that even its antagonists had acknowledged
to be attached to it. Confident, notwithstanding the
ablest leaders of the whig and tory parties had combined
against his cause, that still their joint exertions had failed
to discourage its friends, or to produce a crisis fatal to its
advance, he commenced his reply under auspices so favor-
able, that it was impossible he could have been otherwise
than what he was, throughout the entire of his address.

" In replying to the personalities that had been used by
many of the preceding speakers, it was expected that he
would have severally taken up the individuals who had in-
dulged in them, from the mover of the amendment down to
the member for Dundalk. This course, however, he judi-
ciously avoided ; but, in order that their conduct should not
pass unnoticed, he selected from the band of his assailants

14

158

ofne individual only, the most distinguished, because the
most virulent of those who had followed his example during
their participation in the debate. Before Mr. O'Conneli
had commenced to reply, we observed Mr. Emerson Ten-
nant suddenly leave his seat behind the treasury benches,
and rush through one of the side-doors that lead to the
members' gallery ; there, removed beyond the eye which
he anticipated would soon be endeavoring to mark him
amongst the crowd below, he seemed to await the moment
when the vial which he himself had filled, would be poured
upon his head. It came, and shortly ; for it was the first
topic that he touched upon after his exordium. ' The first
person that assailed me,' said the speaker, ' was the honor-
able member for Belfast. I presume he is in his place.'
'Hear!' said a voice from the gallery, and O'Conneli con-
tinued— ' I am glad of it ; and I now ask, was there ever
anything more indiscreet in a government than to take
such a person as a seconder of their motion ? If I could
have desired to have lessened the effect of what had fallen
from me — if I had desired that my arguments should have
as little weight as possible in Ireland — if I had desired
that my opinions should be disregarded there, the course
which I should have taken, would be to have as my seconder
a factious and furious partizan, who would have pro-
nounced an invective against the people, their religion, and
their clergy, and taunted as " adventurers," men upon
whom Ae, at least, ought to be sparing in casting such an
imputation. The government knew that there was a cor-
poration inquiry, to forward which, the greatest anxiety has
been expressed by them. Now, what has been done by
the honorable member for Belfast ? Why, with an equal
love of truth and chivalry, he denounced, long since, that
very inquiry as an inquisition, and assailed one of the
commissioners in a manner that did not terminate very
creditably to himself. This is one portion of his political
conduct ; and now look to a preceding part of his career.
When the reform bill was to be carried, the modern con-
servative was an- old republican. "A pampered prelacy,"
and " the folly of a hereditary aristocracy," were then his
favorite topics ; and these, too, were expected to be abol-
ished by him, as blessings which should follow from the
reform bill. And this — this is the person the government
has selected as the seconder of their motion, and whom,

159

also, they have enthusiasticall'y cheered, when he assailed
me ! I shall not, however, retaliate ; but I can imagine a
being who would assail me so — a being, at one time exult-
ing in all the fury of republicanism, then a speculating
adventurer, and dwindling at last into a mean and merce-
nary political dandy ; I can conceive such a being servile
and sycophantic in one situation — petulant and presumptu-
ous in another — calumnious and contemptible in all.'

*' O'Connell occupied about fifty minutes in his reply,
which space, considering that he noticed almost every
speaker of any importance that had opposed his motion,
proves how successfully he must have condensed his argu-
ments within that compass, and how little time he had for
the exercise of any of those oratorical expedients by which
public speakers are often enabled to produce a considerable
effect. He succeeded, without the aid of any of these
advantages, by the powerful energy of his own talents
alone, and in despite of a predetermined and inexorable
host by whom he was surrounded. If, as he said, his first
speech was not intended for his audience, he made amends
for the omission by adapting the second in a more decided
manner to the minds of his brother members ; and although
it failed to array them upon his side at the division, the
general acclamation that burst forth as he concluded, proved
how far at least he had gained upon their admiration ana
respect.'*

This debate occupied seven days ; and when, on the
29th, the question was finally put, there appeared a vast
majority opposed to it. The result was no sooner an-
nounced, than Mr. Spring Eice immediately moved an
address to the king on the subject, which motion was also
carried through both houses by large majorities. His
Majesty appointed the 1st of May for receiving it, which he
did, according to report, with great satisfaction.

Thus for a time the destiny of Ireland seemed an endless
dependance, and all her complaints no better than the vain
howlings of a prisoner in his subterranean solitude. Those
who feasted and revelled in their lordly chambers above,
suffered no thought to penetrate the distance through which
they imagined no voice could reach them. But Ireland
was laboring under a thousand unredressed wrongs, and
the reign of Agitation could cease only in the reign of
Right.

160

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Accession of the Melbourne Minutry. — The Five Years*
Truce with England. — Orangeism. — The Fruitlessness
of Peace. — Revival of Agitation. — Just Judgment of the
Whigs,

Tee close of 1S34 saw another change of ministry, a
new one being formed of the old Peel and Wellington
stamp, with the addition of the Duke of Richmond and Earl
Ripon, two members of the deceased Reform Cabinet, who
loved power better than consistency. A repeal of the
reform bill was threatened, under pretence of an amend-
ment; and an "indemnity" of the established church, for
the reduction of tithes, was another fa%'orite project of the
new rulers. Alarmed at such prospects, O'Connell called
around him all the patriotism of Ireland, and exhorted them
to combine and stand together, that they might thus keep
the advantages they had struggled so hard to obtain. They
formed themselves into the Anti-Tory Association, (on
which the National Political Union was abandoned,) and
labored strenuously to avert from the empire, more particu-
larly from Ireland, the probable calamities of a new tory
regime.

A general election occurred in the interim between the
dissolution of the Parliament of 1S.34 and its re-assemblinor
in '3o ; the Irish people, thoroughly aroused to the impend-
ing danger, exerted all their energies, as if the battle of
emancipation was to be fought over again ; this resulted
in the return of a large majority of reformers — the effect
of which was, the new cabinet were defeated on the very
threshold of their triumph ; the opposition Speaker, (Aber-
crombie,) was chosen by a majority of ten, and the speech
from the throne was amended by a majority of seven.
After a brief service of about three months, Sir Robert Peel
and his colleagues resigned that power they had pre-
determined to abuse, and the Melbourne administration
followed.

161

This new administration obtained the confidence of Mr.
O'Connell, and could they have fulfilled their promises,
would have continued lo deserve it. They chose for Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl Mulgrave, now Marquis of
Normanby, a statesman of enlarged views, and distin-
guished for liberality. They gave him for Secretary, Lord
Morpeth, one of the purest and most high-minded of Eng-
lishmen ; they placed Perrin and O'Loghlen in the two
highest Irish legal offices ; they made Mr. More O'Ferall
an under Lord of the Treasury; Shiel, Master of the Mint,
and disbanded the Orange faction. Surely, such a com-
mencement auofured well to Ireland from their future leg-isla-
lion. The prime sin of the Grey administration had been
their patronage of tories, on which rock they split. That
premier was also unfortunate in the choice of his subordi-
nates, for there could not have been a worse selection for
Ireland, than the Marquis of Anglesea and Mr. Stanley.
Both hated 0"Connell, as if by instinct ; and his feelings
towards them were, from the first, of the most hostile de-
scription. But when these worthy gentlemen laid violent
hands on the father of the Irish people, and attempted to
incarcerate his person, they showed too plainly how unfit
they were for the station they held. There can be no
doubt that this circumstance hastened the fall of Lord Grey,
and facilitated the rise of Melbourne. The latter saw
clearly through the great blunder made by his predecessor,
and he solemnly resolved, and publicly vowed, to take the
warning. But the vow did not last many years ; and the
lesson fors^otten brought on a similar punishment. Lord
Melbourne resolved to steer wide of such an error ; but,
unhappily for liberal principles, he, like many another poli-
tician, while avoiding Scylla, ran plump into Charybdis.

On Monday, May 11th, lS3o. the new \-iceroy arrived
in Ireland, having been recalled from the crovernment of
Jamaica, — where his departure was regarded as a public
calamity, — to preside over the destinies of another island of
slaves. His reception was on a scale of unusual magnifi-
cence ; triumphal arches, decked in the glowing produc-
tions of surviving looms — the earnest faith of the people —
the hoarse voices of the cannon, and the brilliant corleges
which blocked the magnificent streets of the long-misruled
metropolis — were all promissory of better times for Ireland.

But cold would have been that noble viceroy's welcome,

14#

162

had he not come from England with a character endorsed
by the eulogium of O'Connell. This was the secret of the
clamorous joy which everywhere met the ear, and of the
costly exhibitions of remaining grandeur, which neither
crown nor coronet, wealth nor promises, could have pro-
cured for an untried ruler, from that justly suspicious race.
But Lord Mulgrave in the sequel showed himself not un-
worthy of the cead miUe failthee '^ he had received ; and
had his colleagues in the cabinet of England, endeavored
to earn an honest popularity by a like upright and consis-
tent course, the Melbourne administration might have held
the reins until this day. Not only Mulgrave, but the whole
cabinet had been vouched for by Mr. O'Connell ; and the
earlier measures, as well as appointments of their making,
fully justified the confidence he asked for them.

With a momentary interruption, this ministry retained
power until 1840. Within that period, many great con-
cessions were made to Ireland by the imperial legislature,
at the instance of Mr. O'Connell. Of these the chief were
the Irish church reform bill, and the Irish corporate reform
bill. By the provisions of the first, tithes were lessened
from 75 to 68 per cent. ; by the operation of the second,
municipal religious tests, and municipal Orange exclusive-
ness have been abolished. Both were assuredly triumphs
of no secondary order; they were a necessary sequel to
the emancipation act. The operation of the latter has been
attended with the most gratifying results, since within two
years last past, we have seen the five chief cities of the
country presided over by mayors of the long-proscribed
Roman Catholic persuasion. Dublin rejoiced in the pater-
nal care of O'Connell, and forgot, for a time, her misery
and altered state in the honor conferred on her by such a
choice. The southern cities, and even Derry, forgot an-
cient feuds ; and at the civic board, the high courtesy of
honorable minds succeeded the narrow and gloomy bigotry
of an associated privileged sect. But for these blessings,
the House of Lords took care Ireland should owe them
nothing. They had gone to the most indecent extremities
in their opposition to these, as well as to all other necessary
and commendable changes.

One of the earliest and most important services of the

* Anglice — A hundred thousand welcomes.

163 -

new ministry, was their expose of the nefarious system of
secret combinations called Orange Lodges. Of all the for-
midable conspiracies which ever fettered government, or
thwarted social advancement amongst a people, this was
assuredly the most criminal and destructive. From long-
continued impunity, its leaders at last lost all sense of
shame and honor, and their annual processions on the anni-
versaries of the chief victories of William the Third, were
marked with blood and sacrifice in the memory of the
empire. But the northern province of Ireland was their
great stronghold. The fertile valleys of Tyrconnel, the
broad lands of O'Neil, the picturesque patrimony of Ma-
guire, and the rich domains of Mageinns, had been, in the
16ih and 17th centuries, torn from their legitimate proprie-
tors, and bestowed upon adventurous Scots, bestial Hes-
sians, and the promiscuous followers of the Prince of
Orange. These races combining together in the north,
and conscious of the illegality of their title-deeds, strove by
exciting feuds and jealousies between the two kingdoms, to
retain the Catholics in bonds, and to attract toward them-
selves all the fat of the land, with the approbation of the
English governors. Though some amongst them knew and
practised a better creed, the immense majority had bitterly
opposed emancipation, and all the smaller concessions that
followed in its train. It was, therefore, a victory to the
Irish, when a committee was appointed by Parliament, on
the 23d of March, 1835, to inquire into the nature, oaths
and obligations of this confederacy. On the 4th of August
following, Mr. Hume, the chairman of this committee,
introduced the annexed resolutions, as containing the min-
utes of evidence examined before them, and their opinions
thereon : —

Resolution 1. That it appears, from the evidence laid
before this House, that there exists at present, in Ireland,
more than fifteen hundred Orange Lodges, some parishes
containing as many as three or four Private Lodges, con-
sisting of members varying in number from sixteen to two
hundred and sixty, acting in communication and correspon-
dence with each other, and having secret signs and pass-
words as bonds of union, and all depending on the Grand
Lodge of Ireland.

Kesolution 2. That the Orange Institution of Ireland

164

is unlimited in numbers, and exclusively a Protestant As-
sociation ; that every member must belong to a private
lodge, to which he is admitted under a religious sanction,
and with a religious ceremony, carrying a Bible in his hands,
submitting to certain forms and declarations, and taught
secret signs and pass-words.

GENERAL RULES OF THE ORANGE INSTITUTION.

"No. 1. The Orange Institution consists of an unlim-
ited number of brethren, whose admission is not regulated
by any other test than those of their religious character and
principles.

" 2. No person who at any time has been a Roman
Catholic can be admitted into the Institution, except by
special application to the Grand Lodge, or Grand Com-
mittee, accompanied by certificates and testimonials, trans-
mitted through the Grand Secretary of his county, which
shall be so perfectly satisfactory as to produce an unani-
mous vote on the occasion.

" 3. Any member of the Orange Institution who shall
print or circulate anything connected with the Institution
affecting its character, or the character of any of its mem-
bers, without the sanction of the Grand Lodge, or of the
Grand Committee, shall be expelled by the Grand Lodge.

" 4. That every member of the Orange Institution shall
belong to a Private Lodge, and that no person shall be pro-
posed as a member of a committee, unless the Lodge to
which he belongs is mentioned."

Resolution 3. That no Lodge can be constituted without
a warrant of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, signed by the
Grand Master and office-bearers for the time being, and
having the seal of the Grand Lodge thereto affixed.

COPY OF A WARRANT OF THE " ORANGE INSTITUTION."

X, > Statue of William III. \ ^t.. ^ .\ .
18 — \ / "^District of

" By virtue of this authority,
our well beloved Brother Orange-man of the Purple Order
(and each of his successors) is permited to hold a Lodge,

No. , in the county

and district above specified, to consist of True Orange-

165

MEN, and to act as Master, and to perform the requisitions
thereof.

(County Seal) Given under our Great Seal.

(Great Seal.)

(Copy.) Ernest, Grand Master.

(Copy.) Enniskkillen, Deputy Grand Master.

(Copy.) Henry Maxwell, Grand Secretary.

(Copy.) Wm. Swan, Deputy Grand Secretary.

(Copy.) Alex.'r Percival, Grand Treasurer.

(Copy.) H. R. Baker, Deputy Grand Treasurer.

Countersigned by

County Grand Master."

I am authorized to state, on the part of the Grand Orange

Lodge of Ireland, that a marching warrant only diifers from

this,^ in the district being filled up thus : " District of

Regiment."

• HENRY MAXWELL, Grand Sec.

COPY OF RULES FOR PRIVATE LODGES.

" No. 23. No Private Lodge shall be held without the
authority of a warrant from the Grand Lodge, signed by
the Grand Master, a Deputy Grand Master, the Grand
Secretary, Deputy Grand Secretary, Grand Treasurer, and
Deputy Grand Treasurer, and countersigned by the Grand
Master or Deputy Grand Master of the County, and sealed
with the seals of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and of the
Grand Lodge of the county in which such Lodge shall be
held.

"24. All applications for warrants shall be made through
the District Lodges, in the County Grand Lodge, to be
thence forwarded to the Grand Lodge of Ireland, under
their respective seals, transmitting therewith the sum of one
guinea; with renewals, the sum of five shillings."

COPY OF A RESOLUTION OF THE GRAND COMMITTEE APPOINTED
BY RULE NO. 18 OF THE GRAND LODGE.

[See Resolution No. 4.]

Moved by Rev. C. Boyton, seconded by Francis Kier-
man.

April 22, 1830.

" That this Committee recommended to the Grand Orange
Lodge, at its meeting on the 5th of May, to establish a law,

166

that all warrants in future be signed alone by the Grand
Master, His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, by
the senior D. G. M. of Ireland, the Grand Secretary of Ire-
land, and countersigned by the County Grand Master.

" W. Brownrigg, Chairman.

" Thomas Nixon, A. G. I."
Resolution 4. That it appears by the laws and ordi-
nances of the Orange Institution in Ireland, dated 1835,
that the Secretary of each Private Lodge is directed to re-
port to the Secretary of the District Lodge ; the Secretary
of each District Lodge to report to the Grand Secretary of
the County Lodge ; the Grand Secretary of the County
Lodge to report to the Deputy Grand Secretary of the
Grand Lodge in Dublin ; and the Grand Lodge to hold
meetings at stated periods, to transact ordinary business ot
the society : and the Deputy Grand Secretary of the Grand
Lodge to communicate half yearly to each Lodge in Ireland,
and also to the Grand Lodge of Great Britain.

COPY OF RULES FOR PRIVATE LODGES.

" No. 5. The Secretary of each Lodge to make a return
as soon as possible after the regular meeting in February
to the District Secretary of the names and residences of the
several officers in his Lodge, together with its place of
meeting and post town, and number of its members.

" 13. Masters of Lodges shall make returns to their Dis-
trict Masters of the names and residences of the members
of their respective Lodges, at the district meeting in March.

" 14. In order to establish a fund to defray the expenses
of the Grand Lodge of Ireland^ each lodge shall transmit
a subscription of not less than 2s. 6d. annually to the County
Treasurer, to be by him forwarded (at the same time with
the return of the County Grand officers in April) to the
Deputy Grand Treasurer of Ireland."

RULES FOR DISTRICT LODGES.

" No. 3. District Masters shall make returns to the
County Grand Lodges of the names and residences of the
brethren in their districts, and of individuals rejected or ex-
pelled within said district, at the county meetings to be held
in April.

" 5. The Secretary of each District shall make a return^
as soon as possible after the regular meeting in March, to

167

the County Grand Secretary, of the names and residence
of the several officers in his District Lodge, together with
the name and residence of each of the Masters and Secre-
taries of the Private Lodges, their places of meeting and post
towns, with the number of members in each; and ivhereve?
the County Grand Lodge is not formed of the district officers,
the Secretary of each Lodge shall make a return to the
County Secretary, similar to the one to be made to the
Secretary of the district."

RULES FOR COUNTY LODGES.

" No. 6. The Grand Master of the Counties shall make
returns to the Grand Lodge of Ireland, of the names and
residences of the brethren in their counties, at the meeting
of the Grand Lodge in May.

"7. The Grand Secretary • shall make a return of the
County Grand Officers to the Grand Committee, within one
week after the election.

" 8. The Grand Secretary of each county shall make a
return as soon as possible after the meeting in April, to the
Deputy Grand Secretary of Ireland, of the names and res-
idences of the several District masters in his county, to-
gether with the names and residences of the Masters and
Secretaries of the several Private lodges, places of meeting
and post town, as also the number of members in each
Lodge.

" The Grand Secretary shall make a return to the Grand,
Lodge of Ireland^ of the names and residence of all persons
rejected or expelled within their respective counties, at the
meeting in May."

RULES FOR GRAND LODGE.

" No. 2. The Grand Lodge of Ireland shall have two
stated meetings in the year, viz., in May and November.

" The Grand Lodge shall, after the general election of offi-
cers for the ensuing year, proceed to transact their ordinary
business.

" 12. The Grand Officers of Great Britain are members
of the Grand Lodge.

" 13. All members of the Grand Lodge are members of
every other Lodge in the kingdom.

" 14. No member of the Grand Lodge whatsoever, shall
be allowed any privilege as such until he has paid his
subscription for the current year, of one guinea.

16S

"17. The Deputy Grand Secretary shall communicate
in the half yearly report to each Lodge in Ireland, and tc
the Grand Lodge of Great Britain, the names and resi-
dences of all persons that are rejected or expelled from
the Orange Institution.

" 18. The duty of the Grand Committee shall be, to
watch over the interests of the Orange Society while the
Grand Lodge is not sitting, and to decide upon applications
from subordinate Lodges, conformably to the mles of the
Institution, as the exigencies of the different cases coming
within their knowledge may appear to require. All the
acts of the committee shall be submitted to the scrutiny of
the Grand Lodge at its ensuing meeting.

" 1. All official communications sent to the Grand
Lodge, or the Grand Committee, shall be transmitted
through the County Grand Secretary, or grand officer hold-
ing the county seal, and sealed with the same."

Resolution 5. That Orange Lodges have individually
and collectively addressed his Majesty, both Houses of Par-
liament, the Lord Lieutenant, and others, on special occa-
sions, of a political nature, such as on the subject of the
Colonies, the Change of Ministry, the Education of the Peo-
ple, the Repeal of the Union, Catholic Emancipation, and
Reform of Parliament.

EXTRACTS FROM BOOKS OF PROCEEDINGS OF COMMITTEE OF
GRAND ORANGE LODGES OF IRELAND.

" That the Rules submitted by the D. G. S. for the gov-
ernment of the colonies be adopted, and that publicity be
given to the same."

Moved by J. Butler, ) pegged

Seconded by J. H. Jeboult, )

" That the address to the King on the subject of the
Colonies be adopted, and forwarded to the Trustees for sig-
nature. 31st Oct., 1829." [Vide Appendix.]

5th May, 1832.

" [Appendix 76.] That circulars be forwarded to the
several Masters of the Orange Lodges in Ireland, request-
ing them to procure petitions from their several lodges, to
both Houses of Parliament, against the new Irish Ediica-
tion system, also against the Irish Reform Bill, and to for-
ward them without delay to the Right Honorable, the Earl
of Roden, House of Lords, London, endorsed, ' Parliamen-
tary Petition.' "

169

28th November, 1828.

" Eesolved, That we deem it essential for the preserva-
tion of oar Protestant constitutions, that we should co-ope-
rate with the committee of the Brunswick Club in procuring
and obtaining signatures to Petitions, to be presented to his
Majesty, and both Houses of Parliament, against further
concessions to persons professing the Popish or Roman
Catholic Religion."

Resolution 6. That the Grand Lodge of Ireland has in-
terfered in political questions, and expelled members for the
exercise of their constitutional and social rights ; has inter-
fered at elections and defended criminal prosecutions, as
appears from the evidence and from the minutes of pro-
ceedings in the book of the Grand Lodge, produced before
the select committee.

[Q. 1935.] " That Mr. Archibald Fisher was expelled
the Society, for canvassing and being an active partizan,
and heading processions of bodies of men whose principles
may be judged, from their shouting, 'O'Connell and the
Repeal of the Union.'

[Q. 1937.] " That John Hitton was removed from the
Committee of the Grand Lodge, for not having voted at the
late city election, that being on the 9th of June, 1831.

[Q. 1938.] " That the Grand Committee be directed to
remove from the list of officers of the Grand Lodge the
name of any person or persons supporting the Reform Bill.
as proposed by his Majesty's present government.

[Q. 1939.] " That the Rev. Henry Cottingham and the
Rev. Samuel Willis were expelled the institution on the
8th June, 1831, for sacrificing their principles as Orange-
men, by voting for the reform candidates."

EXTRACTS FROM THE APPENDIX.

" 1st September, 1831.
"That Major Brownrigg be expelled from this commit-
tee, in consequence of his conduct at the recent election in
Dublin, and that his expulsion from the institution at large
be recommended to the Grand Lodge of Ireland, and that
a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the King's County
Grand Lodge.

" 12th February, 1833.
" That the sum of £10 sterling be placed at the disposal
of brother M'Neale, for the purpose of defending an Orange-
man, at present in the gaol of Dundalk,
15

170

" 24tli December, 1834.

"That a document be prepared to be forwarded to the
Orange electors of the city of Armagh, calling on them
most strongly to support a Protestant candidate, and give
their most determined opposition to the return to Parlia-
ment of Mr. Dobbin, or any other person professing the
same radical principles."

Resolution 7. That it appears by the books of the Grand
Lodge of Ireland, produced by its Deputy Grand Secretary,
before the Select Committee of this House, the undermen-
tioned warrants for constituting and holding Orange Lodges
have been issued to non-commissioned officers and privates
of the following regiments of Cavalry and of Infantry of the
Line, at home and abroad ; to non-commissioned officers of
the Staff of several Militia regiments ; to members of other
corps and to the Police, namely : —

No. of

Question in

evidence.

2244

2245

2253

No. of the Warrant

in the Register of the

Grand Lodge of Ireland.

The name of the person to whom
of the regiment,
and date of warrant.

granted ;

2269
2271

2273

155

334

415

506
564

567

568
859

878

To John Thompson, Glass-
lough, Monaghan, Militia
Staff, 24lh Sept., 1828.

D. Thompson, 24th regi-
ment, (marching warrant,)
1st Oct., 1829.

Peter Duff, Fermanagh Staff,
(marching warrant,) 30th
Jan., 1835.

Marching warrant, (see Ap-
pendix, p. 54.)

Marching warrant, (see Ap-
pendix, p. 54,) 15th regi-
ment, 15th Sept., 1830.

John Kennedy, Dublin, 1st
Dragoon Guards, 26th
Dec, 1831.

Marching warrant, (see Ap-
pendix, p. 54.)

George Agnew, 59th regt.,
22d Oct., 1833.

Marching warrant, (see Ap-
pendix, p. 56.)

171

Samuel Scott, Cork, 89th

regiment, 1st May, 1834.
James Gresson, Cork, 70th

regiment, 1st May, 1834.
Colin Danlop, 79th regiment,

(marching warrant,) 3d

Jan., 1827.
J. N. Henry, 4th Dragoon

Guards, 1st April, 1835.
7th regiment, (marching war-
rant,) 28th April, 1835.
James Gillespie, regiment,

Armagh, 20th February,

1829.
J. Meineigh, 1st regiment of

foot, city of Derry, 2d

January, 1834.
W. Gutteridge, Fermanagh

Staff, (marching warrant,)

24th Sept., 1828.
J. Fisher, 81st regt., Dublin,

17th September, 1832.
Robert Moore, 15th Hussars,

25th March, 1835.
J. Meineigh, 1st Royal Foot

regiment, Londonderry,

7th June, 1834.
2295 1725 W. Evans, 85th regiment,

county of Limerick, 14th

March, 1834.
John Maberty, 83d reg., 11th

September, 1832.
R. Taylor, 2d battalion 1st

Royals, 25th March, 1835.
Sergt. N. Hanna, 60th reg.,

1st battalion, 1st May,

1829.
Henry Nicols, 50th regt., 4th

July, 1832.
Thomas Pownall, 80th reg.,

8th August, 1832.
Alexander Mortimer, senior,

depot 32d regiment.

2275

879

2270

876

2274

1115

2277

1372

2278

1390

2284

1406

2287

1412*

2288

1433

2291

1501

2292

1537

2293

1592

2296

1740

2297

1765

2298

1775

2299

1780

2300

1781

2301

1831

172

EXTRACTS FEOM BOOK OF PROCEEDINGS OF COMMITTEE OP

GEAND LODGE.

" 1st January, 1834.
" Resolved, That warrant No. 1592 be granted to Joseph
Meineigh, of the First Royals, on the recommendation of
brother Adam Schoales of Derry. N. D. Cromelin.

"25th March, 1835.
Present :
N. D. Cromelin, Chairman.
Rev. R. Handcock, Hugh R. Baker,

Annesley Hughes, William R. Ward,

Sir D. J. Dickenson, Allan Ellison,

James C. Lowry, William W. Childers,

Thomas Marshall, John J. Butler,

Thomas J. Stoney, John 0. Jones,

James Jones, William Swan.

"That warrant No. 1537 be granted to brother Robert

Moore, for the 15th Light Dragoons." Moved by W.

Swan, and seconded by J. 0. Jones.

"That Lodge 1575 be permitted to initiate Mr. Talbot,

formerly a Roman Catholic." Moved by J. C- Lowry —

seconded by Wm. Swan.

" That a warrant. No. 1765, be granted to R. Taylor for

second battalion of the First Royals."

" 1st April, 1835. •
Present :
N. D. Cromelin, Chairman.
Rev. R. Handcock, George W. Breton,

John Mayne, William W. Childers,

Isaac Butt, Hugh R. Baker,

W. C. Epsy, Stewart Blacker,

H. Murphy, William Swan.

" That warrant 1372 be granted to brother J. N. King,
for the 4th No. on the Dragoon Guards."

EXTRACTS FROM BOOK OF WARRANTS.
Register.

155 John Lee, Glasslough, Militia Staff, Monaghan,

Nov. 18, 1823.
1309 John Little, 25th regim.ent of foot, Oct. 4, 1823.
1406 Serjeant John M'Mullen, Militia Staff, Armagh,

March 8, 1824.
1623 John Bushill, 1st Royals, July 28, 1824.

173

4632 Francis Kennedy, County Limerick Police, Co.

Clare, Feb. 12, 1824.
1689 J. Buchanan, Rifle Brigade, June 4, 1824.

1711 D. Dowdall, 1st Royal Veteran Battalion, Feb.

20, 1824.

1712 John M'Matty, 12th Royal Lancers, Feb. 20, 1824.
1723 W. Hannah, 2d or Queen's regt., May 15, 1824.
1725 John Aiken, 2d Royal Veteran Battalion, Derry,

May 28, 1824.
1729 H. Holden, 5th Dragoon Guards, June 16, 1824.

1733 R. Kerry, 4th Dragoon Guards, July 28, 1824.

1734 2d Rifle Brigade, July 28, 1824.

" 17th December, 1829.
"Moved by Rev. C. Boyton, seconded by E. Cottingham,
"That T. B. White's suggestions be adopted as the
resolution of this committee :

" That the next dormant number be issued to the 66th
regiment, and the Quebec brethren be directed to send in a
correct return, in order that new warrants be issued."

" 17th November, 1831.

[Appendix 76.] — " Your committee have received from
America the most cheering accounts, and the lodges now
sitting there under your warrants emulate each other in
evincing their gratitude for the interest taken by you in
their welfare."

Resolution 8. That such warrants are sent privately and
indirectly to such non-commissioned officers and privates,
without the knowledge or sanction of the commanding offi-
cers of such regiments or corps, and every Lodge held in
the army is considered as a District Lodge.

COPY OF A LETTER FROM WILLIAM SCOTT TO WILLIAM SWAN,

THE DEPUTY ASSISTANT GRAND SECRETARY OF THE

GRAND LODGE. [Q. 2856.]

" Sir — We, the Master, Deputy Master, and Secretary
of 1458 Orange Lodge, of the 16th Company Royal Sappers
and Miners, having, in August, 1831, taken out the above
warrant from the county of Antrim Grand Lodge — we are
increasing in number, and wish to be supplied with any
information which the Grand Lodge from time to time
sends to our other country brethren. The regulations not
pointing out any means for military Lodges holding com-
15"^

174

munication, we have therefore come to the resolution of
applying by letter to you for instruction, which will be most
thankfully received. From the peculiar nature of our duty,
we do not remain long in any place ; therefore, your
answering this as soon as possible will confer a lasting
obligation on your most obedient, humble servants and
brethren, William Scott, Master.

Daniel Rock, Deputy Master.

Edward Dixon, Secretary."

" 15th February, 1833.
[Appendix.] "William Scott, 16th Company Royal Sap-
pers and Miners.

" That the committee would most willingly forward all
documents connected with the Orange system, to any confi-
dential person in Ballymena^ as prudence would not permit
that printed documents be forwarded direct to our military
brethren. W. J."

[Q. 2856.] In reply to this is a letter from Mr. Scott,
dated 18th February, stating, " I have to acknowledge the
receipt of your letter of the 15th inst., and take this oppor-
tunity of expressing my thanks for the kind and gentlemanly
manner in which you have answered last month's letter.
I request you will be kind enough to convey the thanks of
the brethren of No. 1458, to the committee of the Grand
Lodge, for their prompt consideration of our business, as
well as for the interest they have shown in our welfare.
The parcel, containing the papers, &c., can be directed to
Mr. Andrew Crosbie, saddler, who is a faithful brother, and
can be depended on."

Resolution 9. That the General Orders of the Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Forces (Parliamentary Paper, No
395 of 1835) addressed in the yeais 1822 and 1829, to
Commanding Officers of Regiments and of Depots, and to
General Officers and to other officers on the Staff, at home
and abroad, strongly reprobate the holding of Orange
Lodges in any regiment, as ^^ fraught with injury to the
discipline of the army;'''' and '■'■that on military grounds
the holding of Orange Lodges in any regiment or corps^ is
contrary to order and to the rules of the service; " and " that
a disregard of this caution will subject offending parties to
trial and punishment for disobedience of orders."

175

No. 2.
(Copy.) (Confidential.)

Circular Letter from the Adjutant General, dated July 1,
1822. (Addressed to Officers commanding regiments of
Cavalry and Infantry, at home and abroad, East Indies
excepted.)

"Horse Guards, July 1, 1822.
" Sir — Reports having reached the Commander-in-Chief
that measures are taking in some regiments to promote the
establishment of Orange Lodges, and that in certain in-
stances Commanding Officers have been solicited to permit
soldiers to receive diplomas for holding such Lodges, his
Royal Highness desires that you will state, for his Royal
Highness' information, whether any attempt of this descrip-
tion has been made in the regiment under your command,
as his 'Royal Highness ca7inot too strongly reprobate a
practice so fraught with injury to the discipline of the
Army. I have, &c.,

(Signed) H. Torrens, Adjutant General."

No. 3.

(Confidential.)
Circular Letter from the Adjutant General, dated Nov. 14,

1829. (Addressed to Commanding Officers of Regiments

and Depots, and to General and other Officers on the

Staff, at home and abroad.)

"Horse Guards, November 14, 1829.

" Sir — In consequence of circumstances which have
recently come to the knowledge of the General Command-
ing-in-Chief, his Lordship has directed me to transmit to
you a duplicate of the circular issued on the 1st of July,
1822, by his late Royal Highness the Duke of York, and
to call your attention to the necessity of strict conformity to
it, and of the exercise of the utmost vigilance on your part
to prevent the i7itrodnctio7i, or the existe7ic€, in the regiment
under your command, of the practice therein adverted to^
and u'Mch loas so pistly reprobated by his Royal Highfiess
as fraught loith i7ijury to the discipline of the A7'my.'

" In making any inquiry with a view to ascertain
whether any Orange Lodges have been made in the regi-
ment under ^^our command, you will cause it to be clearly
understood by the men, that the investigation has become
necessary on military grou7ids, and that they will not be

176

expo^ed to any reflection or disgrace on account of being
Orangemen, but that their meetings being contrary to order
and to the rules of the service, camwt he permitted^ under
any pretence. Finally, that their disregard of this caution
loill subject them to trial and punishment for disobedience
of orders. I have, &c.,

(Signed) H. Taylor, Adjutant General."

Resolution 10. That these resolutions, and the evidence
taken before the Select Committee on Orange Lodges, be
laid before his Majesty.

Resolution 11. That a humble address be presented to
his Majesty, praying that he will be graciously pleased to
direct his royal attention to the nature and extent of Orange
Lodges in his Majesty's Army, in contravention of the gen-
eral orders of the Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's
Forces, issued in the years .1822 and 1829, which strongly
reprobate and forbid the holding of Orange Lodges in any
of his Majesty's regiments ; and also to call his attention to
the circumstance of his Royal Highness Ernest, Duke of
Cumberland, a Field Marshal in his Majesty's army, having
signed warrants, in his capacity of Grand Master of the
Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, (some of them dated so
recently as April in the present year,) which warrants have
been issued for constituting Orange Lodges in the army.

An address, grounded on this extraordinary statement,
was accordingly prepared and presented to the crown, to
which his Majesty in substance replied that he agreed with
the address in considering such combinations dangerous
and illegal, and that he would " adopt the most effectual
means to prevent the introduction of secret societies" into
the army ; for on the charge of seducing the soldiery from
their duty, the investigation had been established.

These efforts seem to have exhausted the entire stock of
whig liberality, and early in 1838, there was much appa-
rent probability of a coalition between them and Sir Robert
Peel, "the child and champion of toryism." A ferocious
attack on O'Connell by Lord Brougham, and the lukewarm
manner in which the whigs saw their own Irish measures
mutilated by amendments, convinced the "great agitator"
that the sum of ministerial concession was filled up, and
farther they would not, or could not proceed. In the career
of reform they had forgotten the inspired maxim — "he that

177

hath put his hand to the plough, let him not look back ; "
for when the furrow was laid open, when the good grain
was half so\ati, their evil genius, like the magician men-
tioned in a German legend, metamorphosed them into
ravens, and they devoured it. They were a good-inten-
tioned class; but hell, it has been well said, is paved with
good intentions. If their cowardice had injured only them-
selves, it were small loss ; but it had a most destructive
effect upon the cause of reform in the empire. There were
then but two classes in British politics, the people and the
tories. The former were fast acquiring energy and wisdom
and skill ; they were learning their own strength and their
rights and prerogatives, but they had not been long enough
engaged in such studies to rear a race of plebeian states-
men. They were necessitated, therefore, to look to either
of the political aristocracies, and they chose the whigs for
their allies and agents. Had they been resolute enough to
treat the people as confidants, not as temporary and useful
tools, a thorough regeneration of the constitution might
easily have been effected. But the whisfs slicrhted the
people — the people, in turn, became disgusted with the
whigs ; and the fox of Tamworth stepped in for the spoil,
while both were lying inactively and suspiciously apart.

O'Connell, with his usual foresight, beheld the approach-
ing result, and he resolved to save Ireland, at least, from
the apathy so fatal to popular reforms in the sister island.
On the accession of Lord Melbourne's administration, it
had given to him and the country a solemn pledge that
justice should be done to Ireland. The royal speech of
the same year echoed this sentiment, and condemned all
attempts at agitating for repeal. The accession of Victoria
two years afterward, did not change the cabinet; and one
of the first acts of her Majesty was a letter to Lord Mul-
grave, expressing a wish that he should treat her Irish
subjects precisely as those of England. These fine speeches
had not been openly violated ; on the contrary, they had
been, as we have seen, in a meagre measure fulfilled. Mr.
O'Connell in '35 had said to the new ministry in answer
to their pledges, and to the monarch in reply to his speech,
— " I will give you five years to act upon your promises ;
I will cease for five years to agitate for repeal; you may,
perhaps, do us full justice, which I somewhat doubt. Yet,
to abolish all argument in favor of the Union, I will try a

178

reformeJ imperial Parliament for a fair time ; if it fails,
there can be but one course for Ireland — to demand and
procure the restoration of her own legislature."

For this declaration, he was blamed by the most ultra
friends of Ireland, as well as by the tories. " He has
deserted us!" cried the one. "A compact, a bar^zain, a
Litchfield House purchase — he has sold you!" cried the
other. But the "best abused man" pursued the even tenor
of his way, striking down the outposts as before — abolish-
ing, foot by foot, the outer defences of Anglican domination
ere he returned once more to the main trial. The debate
of 1834 had convinced him the time w^as not yet come
when repeal could be peaceably effected ; and by no other
means would he undertake to accomplish it. The tories
were too strong, the whigs too weak, and the radicals too
wild, to suffer such an end to come to pass in Parliament ;
and not only policy, but necessity stimulated to the experi-
ment. Some have contended, that had he continued to
agitate repeal, he would still have gained all that he did in
the five years' truce — they even assert that such a course
might have gained him more. But in this, they are
completely mistaken. The case stood thus : had Mr.
O'Connell in '35 gained, from the imperial Parliament, all
the advantages of which Ireland was desirous to avail her-
self, or not? It is very evident he had not; then the next
consideration is, if repeal were kept in the foreground,
Avould it not have made the whigs less willing to concede,
and given to the tories the favorite and not powerless cry
of "Revolution?" Any man, who bestows an hour's
thought on the constitution of the imperial Parliament at
that time, must be fully aware that the only wise course
was that of the experiment, or truce.

Although the monarch and the ministry forfeited their
promises and pledges, O'Connell resolved to fulfil his to
the letter. He found peace useful, to a limited extent; but
at a certain point it became inoperative, and he had once
more to recur to his favorite weapon, " agitation." As a
soldier long parted from his sword — as an artist forbidden
the implements of his art, so O'Connell returned to the
rostrum, rearing aloft the banner which had braved a
thousand threatening storms, with only the mystic words —
"Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!" On the 4th of August,
1838, he returned to Dublin, somewhat worn with the

179

fatigues of a most laborious session. On the 18th, he pro-
cured a meeting of his friends and constituents at the Corn
Exchange, wherein, on that day, was organized " The Pre-
cursor Association," the object of which was to co-operate
with the ministry during the remaining two years of the
truce, in doing "full and equal justice to Ireland." If
in this they were disappointed, it was then to merge into
another, to be called the " National Repeal Association." In
its origin, the "Precursor Association" was scarcely less
promising than that formed fifteen years before, in the same
hall, for Catholic emancipation. Mr. O'Connell's compan-
ions were not so limited, but the men who had gained fame
by his side were no longer there ; and the crowd missed
them for a season. Shiel was a ministerialist — Steele had
retired into private life — Mahon had apostatized — Doyle,
Furlong, and Lawless, were gathered to their fathers. The
great old man was not only deserted, but openly attacked.
Mr. Sharman Crawford, an influential northern member of
Parliament, a dissenter, of good fortune, strong talents, and
high parliamentary reputation, was filling column after
column of the Irish press against what he was pleased to
term his evil temporizing; Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald found an
opportunity of venting his long-accumulated bile, in a series
of bitter letters, fraught with spleen and sophistry; while
the Rev. Mr. Davoren, a Catholic clergyman of ability, was
on the same side, hammering at the broad foundations of
O'Connell's public character. It was under such a con-
junction of malignant influences, that the "Precursor Asso-
ciation" sprang into existence; a tour through the island,
during the three last months of the year, was sufficient to
dispel all the gloom, and to combine all the honest men of
the country, "in the last attempt to obtain justice from a
British Senate."

The year 1839 opened on Ireland once more aroused to
the talismanic truth —

" Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?"

Twelve months of agitation passed away, leaving little good
behind it. The " Reform Registry Association " was sub-
stituted, on the 3d of September, for the Precursor Society.
On the 15th of April following, the National Association
was established, but early in July it assumed the additional

180

title and objects of " The Loyal National Repeal Associa-
tion," which it has since continued to hold. An infamously
devised bill of Lord Stanley's, for reducing the paltry
number of the voters of Ireland, hastened this final step,
from which Mr. O'Connell has not retrograded.

The policy of founding so many associations in Dublin,
has been repeatedly ridiculed by Mr. O'Connell's libellers.
But they know little of politics or of truth, who would deny
their utility. These bodies in some measure served as
substitutes for a local Parliament, and in some cases were
fully as efficient as that dependent legislature, which
existed from the violation of the Treaty of Limerick till the
convention at Dungannon. It is true, its members made
no laws of themselves, but they found out the grievances
and wants of the country — they typified its spirit, and pre-
sented wise and well digested plans to the imperial legisla-
ture, which in not a few instances they had strength
sufficient to force through ; they were indispensable
monitors of the Irish members of Parliament, who, living in
a foreign metropolis, where the actual state of their con-
stituents, lost by distance and banished by the comforts of
fashionable society, left them but too prone to degenerate
from their hustings' patriotism. Moreover, for the country
itself, more especially the peasantry, their influence was
most necessary. While the same class in England, under
lighter provocations, were breaking out into all manner of
agrarian outrage, and while illegal combinations were
strengthening in every. English and Scottish city — while
the Chartists flew to arms, and the prisons were crowded
with captured rebels, the humbler classes of Ireland were
comparatively quiet. If an Orange murder excited the
Catholics of the north, or a tithe slaughter aroused the
peasantry of the south, a brief address from " O'Connell's
Association " in Dublin restored all to quiet.

It is not for me to enter into minute details of the actions
of any of the associations alluded to — much less, of that
last named, which is still in such successful operation.
Four years have done great things for Irish independence.
The spirit of the people and the number of their champions
have increased together, until, once more, an assembly is
witnessed, combining the majority of the patriotic and
gifted of the country, toiling night and day, eagerly and
unitedly, for her prosperity and honor. The remnant of

■«c>i

the gallant band of emancipators have rallied around their
veteran chief — the chivalrous Steele, the magnificently-
gifted MacHale, the resolute Barrett, and the high-minded
Lord Ffrench. Some others are dead, and some sleeping ;
but the watchers are not a few, and they are ready. The
son of G rattan, whose name is prouder in its simplicity than
barony or earldom could make it ; the untiring Stanton ;
the faithful nationalist, Valentine Blake, and names too
many for rehearsal, are amongst the watchers at the sepul-
chre, from which the crucified spirit of Irish Liberty is to
arise, glorious and immortal.

Four years have seen as many attempts to quell the
national spirit — and they have failed. Lord Ebrington
withdrew all patronage from repealers ; De Gray superseded
magistrates who felt for their country, and attempted by
military means to extinguish it in blood, on Clontarf ; a
court of justice and a prison have been tried — but the one
could not persuade the people that their leaders were guilty,
nor could the other alienate the free without from the con-
fined within. Firm in the calm resolve of righting their
manifold wrongs — sober as was never race before — studious
beyond any other contemporaneous people — religious as
the most pious of their forefathers, the Irish of to-day stand
m a formidable union, from which they can neither be
wheedled nor terrified. And by these signs, more than
from any external cause, do wise men predict their politicdl
emancipation ; for, if Ireland divide not, England must
yield up the wrongfully acquired and accursed union.

16

1S2

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Anecdotes of the Personal Career of Mr. O'Connell —
Various opinions of his Puhlic Character — View of his
Genius and its Influence — Conclusion.

We have rapidly traversed the long and active public
life of a great statesman. Let us once again cast a glance
upon his personal career, since passing that era from which
we last regarded it. With the triumph of emancipation,
his professional life may be said to close ; for, notwithstand-
ing he has often been engaged, since then, in suits of law,
at least eleven months of each year is given to politics.
The most remarkable of his personal qualities is, perhaps,
his power of winning and keeping friends. For, though
many have broken from his society, the first disruption has
been on his part, and from striking necessities. To Ireland,
indeed, he would sacrifice his dearest personal predilec-
tions ; but however harshly he has dealt by those who
seemed to him deserving of it, he has shown, by many
extraordinary proofs, that he is far from the selfish egotism
his enemies have charged him with. If the dead could
speak to vindicate the living, the voice of O'Loughlen, from
the tomb, would silence all the babbling of a host of such
slanderers. When he himself is no more, a thousand facts
will be his monument to posterity as a most loving and
faithful friend. In his home — amidst the children whom
he loves and watches over, of whom a father might well be
proud, the genuine affections of his soul are seen ; and no
enemy hath ever crossed his threshold and came back as
he entered. Those who have often seen him thus, all asfree
in asserting that there is a charm of manner and of tone
about everything he says and does, which they can never
afterwards efface from their memory. The mother of his
children is now no more ; but in them, she hath left behind
her so many deputies of her own love, that the matronless
board looks cheerful, and the hearth-side gay although there
is no mother there. A score of rosy grand-children gladden
the thoughtful evening hours of the hoary patriot, and for

183

the proud name he has made them, return him homage and
veneration. If there be on earth no more delightful object
than a Christian father seated among his well-taught off-
spring, in this case it is doubly admirable, where the busy,
weary life of the patriot might be an excuse for the omis-
sions of the parent. Politics have been the ruin of many a
noble mind, and the warper of many a soul. Ambition,
power and popularity have given the great of the earth to
man's eternal enemy. Incessant care has blunted the
devotional feelings, while an arbitrating destiny has often
chased away their faith in God, the Supreme Arbiter.
Lordly minds have gloried in a fancied triumph over reve-
lation, and conquering spirits have too frequently spurned
the strict allegiance to be ever rendered to the church.
All these misfortunes, by God's grace, O'Connell has
avoided — of which his household hours are the most con-
vincing proofs. Before such deleterious causes. Napoleon
was crushed, and Jefferson yielded; the Catholic and the
Protestant have been lost together, while he stands up, amid
laymen almost alone, in his deep and uniform observance
of religious duty. His very love of country was a tempta-
tion, the same by which Richelieu stumbled and Wolsey
fell ; but over this also has he triumphed.

A life so ordered could not escape the admiration of good
and fervent spirits like his own. To its influence we may
trace ihe deep personal reverence which has actuated so
many communities to choose him as their representative in
the national councils. We find him, within twelve years,
sitting alternately for Dublin, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Water-
ford, and Clare — and canvassed for by the best men of
these localities, with an enthusiasm which could not be
greater, if he were the bosom friend of each. An anecdote
or two will show how worthy of such friends he is.

In 1834, when Mr. Barrett, of the Dublin Pilot, was
prosecuted for publishing a letter of Mr. O'Connell's, Mr.
Shiel was engaged to defend him. But the day before the
trial, that gentleman suddenly and most unexpectedly
returned the brief which he had before accepted ; and a
few hours before the opening of court, it was placed in Mr
O'Connell's hands. So deeply interested did the latter
feel for his friend, that he immediately accepted — and,
although without previous examination, delivered one of
the most effectivs law arguments he had ever uttered.

184

At a recent election in Carlow, some of the voters had
been decoyed into Mr. Bruin's castle and there confined,
lest they should vote against that gentleman's election.
Their alarmed wives approached the carriage of the Liber
ator as he entered the county-town, amid a dense mass of
spectators, and held up their children to him, in mute appeal.
He took the little ones fondly in his arms, caressed them,
and exclaimed with deep emotion — " The tyrants ! how
could they deprive such innocent beings of their fathers?"

His readiness of repartee is one of the most singular
of his gifts. Addressing a meeting in Dublin, favorable to
domestic manufactures, a wag in the crowd, observing that
he wore a foreign-looking cravat, inquired — "Is that hand-
kerchief on your neck, Irish manufacture?"

"Yes !" rejoined the speaker, " and the man that wears
It, too!"

There are stories innumerable told in the Four Courts
of his promptitude in reply, and humorous eccentricities ;
and even the coal-porters and fish-mongers retail the
" Counsellor's Ion moU " with the greatest fidelity. His
talent at nicknames is incredible — his soubriquets stick
forever. Spinning-Jenny Peel, Scorpion Stanley, Lord
Mount-Goose, and other equally terse descriptions of char-
acter, have been long established as popular phrases.

But he who can thus stigmatize an individual, can bear
m his turn with almost any amount of personal abuse, from
individuals as well as from assemblies. His conduct in the
House of Commons, on two very trying occasions, amply
illustrates this quality.

At a public meeting in 1838, he had charged the tory
election committees with gross bribery, for which he was
censured by the Speaker of the House, on motion of Lord
Maidstone. This censure he received with a dignified
silence — arose after the speaker had ceased, defended his
own conduct, and in the very teeth of his opponents, repeated
the original charge.

On a later occasion he was reported to have said in pub-
lic, that the same assembly contained five hundred scoun-
drels, and for this he was arraigned, as a fresh breach of
privilege. When he arose to explain, he was saluted with
the most clamorous outcries. The voices of all beasts were
imitated to perfection by his right honorable antagonists ; he
turned to the chair and said in an emphatic and calm tone

185

of voice, " Mr. Speaker, am I to be put down by such
beastly bellowing?" This added fuel to the flame. A
score of gentlemen leaped simultaneously to the floor, and
began to gesticulate vehemently ; at length it was decided
that, if he withdrew the word " beastly," the matter should
be dropped ; but he very promptly rebuked this nice distinc-
tion by inquiring, — " What sounds were they ? — surely not
human sounds — and how can there be any other sort of
bellowing but beastly bellowing?" It was upon this occa-
sion that Sir David Roche, of Limerick, stepped forward,
amid the excitement, and boldly declared that if any gentle-
man would say that he considered himself individually in-
sulted by Mr. O'Connell, he. Sir David, was prepared to give
him satisfaction. Indeed, since O'Connell had pledged him-
self to peace, his friends have more than once, been obliged,
at the risk of life, to protect his honor and person. About the
time of the Maidstone vote of censure, his son, Morgan, fought
with Lord Alvanley, because that nobleman considered a
phrase dropped in the House of Commons by Mr. O'Connell
applied to himself personally. Mr. Steele and other gen-
tlemen have carried their attachment equally as far,
although in every instance without the remotest knowledge
on the part of their illustrious friend. Mr. O'Connell him-
self has been more than once tempted to the field since his
vow became known, but he has faithfully observed it, in
spite of every provocation.

The usual treatment of living greatness is slander, doubt,
and caricature on the one hand, and flattery on the other.
If our great subject's eminence is to be measured by the
amount of either which he has received, no other public
man could rival him. There are, however, many excep-
tions to this general truth ; men of foreign birth and fellow-
subjects hav^e made many and sincere attempts to hold up
his public life as it has been acted. All agree in assigning
him great firmness of character, fertility of expedient in
delicate circumstances, deep penetration and a sanguine
temperament which no obstacles can change. His worst
enemies have allowed him the singular merit of consistency,
and, although the tory writers of England endeavored to
make him guilty of corruption in the Litchfield House
" compact," the charge has never been repeated by a credi-
ble authority since the re-commencement of the Repeal
Agitation. The reason seems to be, that while O'Connell
16=^

1S6

was a partisan of the wliigs, their antagonist strove by-
even' means to ruin him in the estimation of his country,
but when he returned to labor for her alone, and thus in-
sured the fall of his former proteges, they ceased to calum-
niate him. Common sense is sutScient to persuade us of
one thing; if !!Mr. O'Connell -were not an honest man, he
could not be to-day, as powerful as he was thirty years ago.
No democratic champion has, I believe, ever retained so
uninterrupted a popularitj'. No mere orator, certainly, has
held his place in the affections of any people. Cicero had
his day of idolatry and of exile. Demosthenes was within
ten years the most powerful, and the most abject of Athe-
nians. But the one gave way to an overweening vanity, and
the bribes of Harpalus justified the ingratitude of Athens
towards the other. Burke was once, perhaps, in a fair way
to become formidable as a public man, at that time when
his foresight was vindicated by the anarchy of France and
the insurrection of America ; but he had more of speech
than action in his soul, and though his gifts of language
were beyond those of created beings, they could not cover
up the absence of that greatest requisite of greatness — prac-
ticability. These men were all more eloquent than O'Con-
nell, in the general interpretation of the word, but they fall
immeasurably below him in the results they have produced.
Had Cicero used his triumph mildly over the Catiline con-
spirators, and withstood the seducing flatteries of Caesar, the
Roman Republic might have seen other ages of glory and
conquest and letters; had Demosthenes thought less of him-
self and more of his country, Athens had not fallen with
him in the estimation of the neighboring states ; had Burke
formed a political school on his own plan, (which he might *
easily have done.) the latter history of Europe would not
be so blasted with civil wars, and desperate attempts at
revolution. But the orators seem to have forgotten that
speech is only valuable as it induces or excites action.

The generosity of O'Connell's public character has
always been admitted by his respectable enemies. There
is hardly any sort of personal offence which he has not for-
given for the sake of union in a good cause, or for Ireland.
The Earl of Shrewsbury, a pious and well-meaning man,
of long descent and vast property, a Catholic for whom
O'Connell had opened the House of Lords, the Premier
Earl of England, and deservedly one of the British laymen

187

most honored by the successor of Saint Peter, this Earl,
published, a couple of years since, a philippic against the
revival of agitation in Ireland, and reflecting pointedly on
the public character of O'Connell. Ingratitude, it is said,
would incense an eremite : the Liberator wrote a rejoinder
famous for its terrible pungency and its unanswerable logic.
" Stand forth Saxon and stranger," he said, and meet your
benefactor, whom you have thus wantonly outraged. The
Premier Earl must have felt the lash in his soul, and it
went deeper and deeper when he recalled his own unpro-
voked attack ; but a few months ago, before the eyes of
assen\bled thousands this mistaken man forgave, and was
forgiven. Another delightful instance of the same class, it
may be well to record. Sir Abraham Bradley King was
one of those Orange Corporators of Dublin, who, before the
passage of the Irish Municipal Reform Bill, rioted in civic
indolence, drank to "the glorious and immortal memory"
of the violator of the treaty of Limerick, and hiccoughed,
" To h — 11 with the Pope," over his turtle soup, provided at
the expense of the Catholic metropolis of a Catholic nation.
Sir Abraham became poor, and put in his claims for a pen-
sion of £5,000 per year ; the man who obtained it for him
was Daniel O'Connell, — that man, who narrowly escaped
death from the pistols of the corporation bravo, and who
was libelled at every sitting of that body, and vilified by
every individual who belonged to it. Many other proofs of
the same loftiness of soul might be rehearsed, but these two
are worth a million.

One of the most ordinary charges against Mr. O'Con-
nell's public character is, that like the Turk, he

"Cannot bear a brother near his throne."

But of this, there is, in his history, as far as I am acquainted
with it, no proof whatever. Had he been so unqualifiedly
ambitious, he had never wrought so long in embryo, be-
hind the banners of Lords Fingal and Killeen. In ISOS, on
the revival of Catholic Emancipation, he was in his thirty-
third year, a prominent member of the first profession in the
land, of genius generally recognized, and sincerity unques-
tioned,— and yet we find him for many years after, content
with the name and rank of a subordinate, while in fact he
was the head and heart of the board. It was not until
1823, that he may be said to have assumed that political

188

supremacy to which he might well have aspired a dozen
years before. This certainly does not look like inordinate
ambition, in his youth. Had he made the effort, he might
have been as prominent in Ireland in his twenty-fifth year,
as Bonaparte was in France, or Pitt in England, at the
same age — ^but principle forbade him. He saw around and
before him, men who had grown gray in advocating, how-
ever feebly or fitfully, the emancipation of conscience ; he
saw Grattan in the senate, and Killeen and Kenmare in
the associations, and he resolved to let them play out the
monarch's part upon the stage ; he respected their venera-
ble years, and was ambitious only in practising that most
difficult of virtues for a politician, self-denial. Since the
Emancipation Bill, how often has he told the men who
cavilled with his egotism, that he would ever be as willing
to follow as to lead ? Have they tried him, ere they con-
demned ? No, to their confusion, be it told. The only
evidence which his most bitter opponent can bring to bear
.on this assertion is entirely presumptive. The fact is, that
Mr. O'Connell could very well afford to allow any other
man the eclat of leadership, for he would ever be the leader
in point of fact. Like the great Earl of Warwick, although
unwilling to be king himself, he could be more — a king-
maker. There never was a public man more free from
jealousy. He has given merit to every consistent friend of
his country or cause, and for the memory of past services
he has often overlooked present derelictions. Mr. Shiel
and Lord Plunket, are cases in point. Both are men of
transcendent oratorical ability ; both devoted the flower of
their youth to the cause of Ireland, and nobly held the
breach against the most formidable of invasions", and both,
unfortunately, in a certain degree, have destroyed the reputa-
tion for which they dared so much. Yet, when Mr. O'Con-
nell mentions either name — though Plunkett prosecuted him
to prison, and Shiel begged for mercy, where he should have
demanded justice — he has always preferred to dwell upon
their better deeds, avoiding their desertions. In a word,
he seems as superior to jealousy as he is above rivalry.
There have been times when he has prostrated an ambi-
tious politician by an unmerciful exertion of his power, but
these instances are very few, and the cases extreme. There
is nothing farther from his nature than deliberate malignity,
or long-cherished personal feelings. He has been forced to

189

become the single leader of Ireland, and in a country whose
hereditary curse was disunion, it was better far to have a
dictator, than a triumvirate. The one may err, and has
erred, but the other would have perpetuated for ages, the
slavery of the soil. But almost all his designs have been
practicable. If he made enemies he converted them by his
generosity into friends. He followed others until obedience
became folly, and he has smce led without fear or dogma-
tism, although in every new stage victorious.

The genius of O'Connell has been much descanted on by
writers, but with indifferent success. A celebrated French
writer considers it, in Parliament, " as a huge plant under
a glass case," and in this opinion the majority of his critics
are agreed. I am inclined very much to doubt the accu-
racy of this decision. When we consider him as born in
Ireland and educated in France, we cannot but wonder that
he has had so many triumphs in the English Parliament.
When we consider, also, that he is a sincere and enthusias-
tic Roman Catholic, and a determined stickler for Irish
nationality, and that five sixths of those around him are
Protestants of different shades of dissent from Rome, and
four fifths of them avowed enemies of Ireland, or at least
careless or prejudiced on Irish matters, this decision will at
once disappear. Taking everything into consideration no
other man has been able to accomplish so much, in the
teeth of such various and important difficulties. Night
after night, and session after session, has he stood in St.
Stephens, the target of six hundred marksmen ; but having
his quarrel just, he was armed in triple mail, and had a
heart beneath it, which never blanched, never despaired.
Men who have faced death in its worst forms, who have
looked unterrified on the carnage of the Peninsula, or, that
wild unearthly conflict when the elements combat around,
below, and above — the mariner — would have fled in dismay
from such a position. But the courage of O'Connell failed
not ; his active voice and wonderful mind were not hushed
before the clamor of the mighty majority, nor diverted by
the insolence of the cowardly allies of the strong cause. He
has faced all that prejudice could array against him ; and
what can it not? Every attempt to stifle his voice has been
defeated, and whenever he has retreated, in haughty silence,
for a time, but to return and pay back scorn for scorn, the

190

plaudits of his worst enemies have not unfrequently accom-
panied him.

If we follow him from the. senate house to the rostrum,
we find the sanie wonderful faculty of adaption strikingly
visible. His genius seems then in its natural channel, so
smoothly and so irresistibly does it pour along. He speaks
more than any one else, and he is better relished. Who-
ever may be present, O'Connell is the lion. Whether it be,
that royal blood presides, and the aristocracy form the audi-
ence, as at the anti-slavery gatherings at Exeter Hall ; or that
an humble priest presides, and the peasantry are his hear-
ers, as in some of his Irish meetings, he pursues the self-
same train of argument, in a style but little altered. There
is a sameness, indeed, in nearly all his orations, but from
an indefinable charm, they never tire either hearer or
reader. There are not many attempts at rhetoric in his
speeches, although at times he has produced as fine pas-
sages of this class as any other speakers of our age. His
sarcasm is one of his most powerful gifts ; it is a miracle of
bitterness when he exerts it to the full, and wo betide the
wight whose portrait he is to draw while in that mood.
He little thinks of refining it, but, as Wilson well remarks
of Burke's imagery, " It is like a tropical shower which
washes down virgin gold and worthless sand together." It
is as unhewn as Swift's, though far less concise, and as
subtle as Sheridan's without the classical nicety of that
great joker. It is a weapon which, like the dagger of the
knight errant, he uses upon all occasions, in opening an
amorous epistle at the bar, roasting an adversary in the
commons, or in despatching him on the rostrum. Few
there are of note in Britain who have not felt it, and none
who have been able to forget it.

The influences of O'Connell's genius and life will be of
great benefit to mankind. He is the founder and father of
a new political philosophy, which promises great results in
futurity. The system of moral agitation is the work of his
hands, and his immortal motto will be, ere many years, as
universal as the science it embodies —

"He who commits a crime gives strength to the enemy.*'

There is another aphorism of his, not unworthy to be
placed beside the last; viz., "Nothing can be politically
right, which is morally wrong." On these two precepts

191

depend the whole secret of his success, and the glory of hi»
history. The principle is at present for the first time recog-
nized as a political truth, that the better way for men to
recover lost rights, is by degrees ; such piecemeal revolu-
tion, whilst it prevents the intoxication of sudden success,
teaches the mind to expand, as its privileges increase ; thus
suiting the slave to bear the novelty of freedom by a gradual
acquaintance with its blessings. And to this end, neither
war, munitions, nor bloodshed, are required ; in peace such
revolutions commence, and in peace they terminate. The
nature of a struggle thus drawn out, taxes, to the utmost
stretch which nature can support, the energies, fortitude and
religious firmness of a people. As they endure, so is their
reward, until at last, having no other trials to pass thjough,
they are admitted in peace to the fulness of their desires,
and the consummation of their ambition.

There now are, and ever will be in the world, advocates
of war and bloodshed. Men, who, constitutionally sanguine,
or insensible to Christian truth, will teach that by blood
alone is right to be acquired, and liberty obtained ; who
take their philosophy from Korner, and their politics from
Paganism ; nay, the world has seen " divines " (so called)
who have contended with martial ferocity for the literal
truth of our blessed Saviour's declaration, that he came not
to send peace but the sword ; and if they considered them-
selves as sent, they certainly endeavored to live up to their
interpretation, in thus becoming firebrands and scourges to
society. The Mahomedan's motto — "The Koran, the
tribute, or the sword " — finds advocates even at this day
amongst the meek disciples of a crucified Kedeemer. It is
hard to stifle the bigot's thirst for slaughter, whether he be
a political zealot or a sectarian partizan, yet a day will
arrive when mankind will learn to estimate their own hap-
piness and honor better than in giving way to brutal appe-
tites for physical conflict. The man who has done most for
the peace principle, is beyond doubt, in our time at least,
Mr. O'Connell. The best of causes may deserve to be put
down, if their friends should attempt by force to establish
them ; and how often in this world is the oppressor strong-
handed, while the neck of the slave is weak and bowed
from habit? Ireland's modern history is the most striking
proof of the insufficiency and danger of using physical
means to redress political or social wrongs. Within seven

192

centuries, that unhappy country has been led into twenty
attempts "at revolution, and each time she failed. She had
leaders and allies — numbers, courage, and wrongs ; and yet
she failed. At an early period of the English connection,
Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, sent over his brother
Edward, and followed himself with a large army, to assist
the northern princes in regaining their independence ; but
this effort failed. Spain sent her veterans in the sixteenth
century, with ships of war, and stalwart cavaliers, and gold
of Peru, to co-operate in the rising of the south and west
against Queen Elizabeth ; and this also failed. France, in
the last century, made three different attempts of a similar
nature, and each of them failed. The poor aborigines, who
clung to the soil as naturally as grass, were thus left to
suffer 'the penalty for both parties ; confiscation performed
its deadly work ; a mercenary soldiery were let loose upon
society ; industry was murdered in the cities, and plenty
banished from the rural districts ; the fiery spirit of the
people went down for a season, until another generation,
unterrified by the example of the past, should spring up to
act the same part, and share in the same punishment.
Indeed, there ever seems to be a fatality attending forcible
revolutions, so much so that for one that has succeeded, one
hundred have failed. The Christian religion, properly
enforced and understood, is the only power capable of
implanting in a people the better way of redress. We
hear men declaim warmly against a brace of worthless
fellows, who go forth to pistol each other ; yet we do not
hear half so much said in denunciation of the wholesale
slaughter, where contending thousands meet to destroy one
another in an imaginary quarrel. A more rigid morality
in the mass of mankind — a larger spiritual authority in the
pulpit, is the only hope of the friends of universal peace.
Whoever would spread this principle must be an O'Connell
in faith, in practice, in sincerity — a man who will reverence
the altar, instead of trying to abolish it ; who will respect
ecclesiastics, not seek to bring their high ofiice into disre-
pute ; who will observe the Lord's day, and the days set
apart to commemorate the virtues of His saints — not a
scoffer, a Deist, or a contemner of holy ordinances. With-
out a temper and a soul like this, it will be in vain to
imitate one, who, by such inward strength, has braved

193

countless perils, ar.d called down the blessing of Provi-
dence upon his designs.

But not for Ireland alone has this life been led, nor to
her alone has the lesson been taught. For thirty years, in
the greatest of modern empires, and the most extensively
read of modern languages, he has done great deeds, the
records of which shall not pass away. For the last twenty
years of that time, the eyes of all Civilization have been
upon him. There' is no land so remote where his name
does not penetrate— no court so far removed from Britain,
where his influence does not enter into the calculations of
statesmen. Few peaceably inclined politicians have ob-
tained so singularly extensive a reputation, and no other
perhaps has possessed so deep a controlling influence
beneath it. Englishmen have railed at him, yet while they
railed they felt the majesty of his prestige weighing on
their hearts. Foreigners, passing from England to Ireland,
having their optics pre-arranged in London, have observed
many derogatory traits in his character, — while those who
visited Ireland first, and viewed things and men with un-
clouded eye, have not failed to proclaim him as the greatest
man in the empire. But though often exasperating, by the
vehemence of his temporary anger, the sensitive national
feelings and prejudices of foreign countries, his name has
not been discarded from any ; the wnse and better minds
of every nation have made allowance for a man, whose too
rigid honesty is his only error as a politician. When they
recall his sayings of England and its Parliament — the bold-
ness of his denunciations of both the great parties of that
kingdom, uttered at their own doors, they always acquit
him of dishonest motives, however they may question his
prudence, or deny his assertions.

There is hardly a crowned head in Europe, with whom
he has not been personally at war. Although but a sub-
ject, he has reached with his strong voice the tenants of
thrones, and maddened the wearers of crowns by the keen-
ness of his attacks. Cloth of gold and marble walls have
been unable to keep out his hostility, and more than one
monarch has trembled beneath the infliction of his lash.
He has been well styled " one of the great powers of
Europe;" and assuredly he has given his brother sove-
reigns many unfriendly proofs of real power. Untitled,
unpensioned and unpatronized by his own or any other
17

194

gfovernment — simply as Daniel O'Connell — he exerts more
influence on European affairs than any single man, premier
or prince, of the present age. With Catholic countries he
secured this influence in '29 ; with Protestant kingdoms he
secured it by his advocacy of the rights of dissenters ; and
wherever the leaven of democracy has entered, his anti-
church-and-state principles, and his universal-suffrage
doctrines have secured to him a permanent host of admiring
friends. Long may he continue to exert his power — to
curb the ambitious schemes of speculating princes — to teach
republics justice and kingdoms a just appreciation of human
rights ! Long may he live to be the father and saviour of
Ireland — the best benefactor of the black slave, and the
ablest advocate of his white brother, in all quarters of the
globe !

My labor of love is nearly done ; and, with all its imper-
fections on its head, I commit it to the eyes of the world.
The canvass was small — the group a large one, whose
members were all models in their respective departments.
The main figure would require the best pen of the age, to
do him justice ; and the most gifted author might not refuse
to take any one — the humblest — of his followers, as a sub-
ject. Their features will be engraven on the immortality
of history ; and as the tide of time bears posterity farther
downward from the nineteenth century, the veneration of
ages will but increase, and the brightness of their fame be
multiplied more and more. Others whom I have over-
looked, for the sake of brevity, will be added; and the
names of O'Connell and his friends will shine a constella-
tion through the night of slavery, and in the noon-day of
liberation ; — and as future chroniclers relate their actions to
other generations, they will add, to the young and ardent
of the earth — " Go ye and do likewise."

The time has not arrived, and I trust for years will
not arrive, when it shall become necessary to add a final
•chapter to the history of O'Connell's life. At the good old
age of threescore and ten years, he now stands before the
world. The temperance of his habits, joined to a constitu-
tion originally lusty and sound, has sustained the repeate.d
shock of midnight debate and constant travel. Within a
year the Avorld has resounded with the magnitude of his
triumph over an unscrupulous combination of perjured
jurors and partizan judges ; and as he slowly and erectly

195

progresses toward the grave, his good deeds shine more
vividly around him. A hundred years from now, his name
and fame will he even better known, and his actions more
favorably interpreted. Ireland will recall his memory, as
the Greeks of old deified their departed great ; and while
his few faults will be forgotten and blotted out, his suffer-
ings, his genius, and his courage will only be remembered.
It will then be recalled with wonder, how for half a century
he battled asfainst the wealtbiest of nations and the most
wily of governments ; how they assailed him with gold,
and he yielded not — laid coronets and ermine at his feet,
and he trod over them ; how in an era of darkness truly
desolate, he emerged from the grave of his country's mur-
dered independence, and smote down, with his single arm,
all the legions of the land of the destroyer ; how before his
voice chains were burst, and dungeon walls impregnable
were sundered, and alters were rebuilt, and monopolies
broken like reeds ; and how he taught the people to secure
all the fruits of revolution without risking any of its
calamities and horrors.

When these truths are unfolded to an unprejudiced
world, in what position will Ireland be ? Will she be free
or enslaved — elevated to the pinnacle of prosperity, or sunk
to the lowest depth of pauperism ? This is a consideration
which we will enter into presently. It will here suffice to
say, that when all O'Connell's triumphs are rehearsed, and
his moral victories recounted by posterity, may the list
contain — (and we doubt not for a moment but it will) — as
one of the most glorious of his achievements,

THE REPEAL OF THE UNION.

196

A GLANCE AT THE FUTURE DESTINY OF

IRELAND,

The destiny of a people is in a great measure, indeed
nearly altogether, the work of their own creation. To
penetrate the mysterious ways of Providence, by unveiling
the hidden face of futurity, has been given to few even of
the most favored of men, and for no trivial purposes. Bat
hope and observation are in some degree prophets ; and it
is because I have firm hope in Ireland's ascension, and have
observed for years past her growing mind, that I have
ventured to throw out the following reflections as a fitting
sequel to the sketches just concluded.

There is no enslaved people who within the present cen-
tury have given such cause for hope to their sympathizers,
as the Irish. When we contemplate the self-denial they
have observed since arriving at a knowledge of their
wrongs, we cannot but allow them the possession either of
a more phlegmatic disposition than they have hitherto been
suspected of, or a deep and all-pervading religious senti-
ment. Within fifteen years the mental eye of Ireland has
been opened ; education has been progressing ; her history
has been unsealed. The first lesson she learned was
indeed of surpassing bitterness. Her first triumph brought
her to the knowledge of herself, of the high estate from
which she had fallen, and of the almost universally received
calumnies on her character and name which England had
propagated as wide as ships could sail, or travellers pene-
trate. There was no people in Europe less known, previous
to the days of the Irish Volunteers. From '82 to 1800,
Ireland nobly vindicated her fame as a mother of ge*tiius
and an ardent seeker after liberty. But the union demol-
ished the fair rising structure, and again England ruled
and libelled unopposed. In 1830, Ireland was again on
her feet ; looking around, she beheld all the horizon cov-
ered with the mists of prejudice and calumny. From one
quarter alone, there came a ray of cheering light — from the
land in whose service Sarsfield and Wolf Tone had died.
Fourteen years are gone, and Ireland has learned some-

197

thing of her own history, and something also of the mournful
truth that mankind are always more prone to give credit to
the charge of the powerful, than the defence of the subju-
gated. A wise resolution was taken ; the people resolved
to undo practically before the eyes of the whole world, the
filthy web of misrepresentation with which England had
surrounded them. Every educational society and improve-
ment was adopted, and a new one was formed which
redounds to her great credit — I mean, " The Christian
Brothers." Mr. Rice, a man of the most exalted purity
of soul, the most generous enthusiasm, and the highest
order of practical ability, was the founder of this admirable
system. " He realized in his own life many of those great
qualities which distinguished Ignatius Loyola, with the
shrinking modesty of a pure, devoted soul. His institution
has conferred on Ireland innumerable advantages thus far,
and many more and greater may fairly be anticipated from
its rapid increase. Gerald Griffin, the inspired author of
Gijsippius — the poet, novelist and philosopher — the scholar
of nature, and child of all the muses, was so deeply im-
pressed with the utility of this excellent association, that,
divesting himself of the world, he descended (or rather rose)
from the instruction of kingdoms, to be a teacher of the
poorest of the children of Ireland. The Ursuline commu-
nity, devoted to the education of female* children, are at
present very numerous in Ireland, and the minds of the
future mothers of the people are being expanded and
improved to a degree which many generations before them
have not been able to compass. The "national education"
system, with all its faults, is also producing its effects; and,
acting on the system of the ingenious Mr. Lancaster, is
sowing the seeds of an abundant harvest. To these we
cannot omit to add the lately-established method of "adult"
self-culture, by the founding of reading-rooms and night-
schools. The Dublin newspaper press deserve everlasting
credit for their unceasing efforts to propagate this most
useful and admirable system. Taking all things into con-
sideration, we can very well agree with a late intelligent
tourist, in the belief that the rising generation of Irish men
and women will be as well, or better educated, than any
other portion of the European populace."^

* Dr. James Johnson
17=^

198

There cannot be a truer maxim than Homer's : —

"Jove makes it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away."

The Irish people, pressed down for so many ages — ren-
dered reckless by an invariable infliction of want, incurred
to a frightful extent, the odious habit of drunkenness. In
this they are generally conceded the "bad eminence" of
superiority ; but there are unanswerable proofs that the
Scottish people exceeded them in intemperance.^ But of
one fact there can be no question — that there are few
among the population, on whom this terrible habit had not
fastened. The Directory of the United Irishmen, in 1797,
proposed to the people a pledge against all intoxicating
liquors, which was not generally adopted. Mr. O'Connell,
at Waterford, in '26, and in the first Clare election, had
pledged the peasantry to total abstinence until the contests
should be decided ; but the effects of these vows ^vere
limited by their duration. It is more than twenty years
since the Rev. George Carr of New Ross introduced the
system of Temperance Societies into Ireland, which lan-
guished through a fluctuating existence until the year 1838,
when Theobald Mathew appeared as the moral regenerator
of the people. Within five years, as many millions of the
Irish people have taken a solemn vow, before God and their
fellow-men, to abstain from all intoxicating drinks; this
they have most rigidly adhered to, and faithfully endeav-
ored to propagate. The contagion of their example has
spread into Scotland and England, and accompanied the
Irish emigrant to the Pacific, and America ; and the w^orld
is now indebted for the brightest example of mioral heroism
which modern times produces, to the longest oppressed and
worst ruled portion of its people. The career of Father
Mathew is a miracle of success ; quietly and humbly, with-
out pomp, or bribe, or flattery, he has induced the people to
cast off" their prevalent and perilous habit. Sobriety has
paved the way for study ; the national love of music has
been revived ; the staple produce of the metropolis is poetry;
the old airs are caught upon the mountains, as they were

* Among other documents tendmg to place the Irish people in
their proper relation to other nations guilty of drunkenness, is the
Parliamentaiy Report of the Excise Commissioners of 1835, in
which their secondary proficiency is clearly established.

199

departing forever ; and an emulative improvement actuates
all the classes of society. Meanwhile, the good apostle,
like another Patrick, traverses the island round and round,
imitating that illustrious saint in the industry and self-
sacrifice with which he pursues his mission, strengthening
social bonds and virtuous societies, shedding peace and
comfort into many a long-desolated home. His ways are
not those of self-opinionated reformers, nor his wisdom as
their wisdom. Yet in those distant ages when half a dozen
names, at most, w^ill be well remembered, out of the multi-
tude of men dignified at this day by the cheap prefix of
" great," that of Mathew wnll hold a first place. Political
systems will perish ; monuments of civilization will disap-
pear; nations, leaving scarce a name, shall have expired —
but his memory shall endure. The "abomination of deso-
lation " shall fill cities and empires ; false creeds shall have
lived and died ; false prophets and their rhapsodies will
have vanished — but the name of this illustrious friar will
not pass away. Their greatness is made wnth hands, or
wdth the voice — while his is erected out of the inexhaustible
energies of his own soul, and the edifice partakes of the
immortality of the instrument of its erection. Their work
is a work of pride, stimulated by passion — his, rising from
humilit}^, touches the heavens ; and sustained by the most
unbounded benevolence, makes all the earth its resting-
place. In them we see the workings of man, the mere
animal — but in him, the exhibition of one, all soul, and
love, and disinterestedness.

There is no other phrase which so well expresses the
character of Irish political history, as the single word, ex-
traordhiary. Singular, indeed, have been the fortunes of
the Hibernian Celts, and their descendants. Ireland was
old when Christianity exiled the Druids from their sacri-
ficial forests ; her commerce was known at Pome, but not
her captives ; Tyre and Sidon had bartered v;ith her, before
Romulus and his brother had forsaken Alba. Her military
fame, at an early time, was equally celebrated ; her soldiers
trampled down the Roman fortifications, and were about
to scale the Alps, when an arrow of lightning, launched
from the thunder-cloud above, struck down Dathy, their
daring general — yet a handful of need}" Normans overran
her sea-coast, and, profiting by the jealousies of rival chiefs,
seized on the pleasant plains of Leinster. Seven_hundred

200

years of slavery have scarcely cured them of that besetting
sin. Early in her Christian ages, when Europe was buried
in barbarism, letters and science found a shelter amidst her
glens, where lil^e a conservatory, those precious plants were
screened from the inclemency of that Gothic winter which
had set in on all the cities and states of the continent.
When literature " revived " abroad, in the latter part of the
sixteenth century, penal laws and Protestantism had com-
menced the work of devastation in Ireland; then, what the
Vandals had done for Rome, and the Saracens for Spain,
Henry and Elizabeth performed for Ireland. With the
accession of the Guelphs this was completed ; and ignorance
and the Reformation were established by law together.
This eccentric destiny clung to the land even later; in the
history of the Stuart war in Ireland, it is strangely exem-
plified. The revolution of 1688 gave new security to
the liberties of the empire, but refastened the fetters of
Ireland. Her soldiers went abroad to win glory in a foreign
service ; her scholars were proscribed and incarcerated ;
and while the reia^n of Anne is the brightest era in Eng-lish
literary history, it becomes the darkest in that of Ireland.
In 1798, the Presbyterians and Catholics first combined to
save the constitution, and enlarge its pale so as to take in
all creeds ; but again a blight came o'er their councils —
and from willing comrades in danger, they were artfully
turned into enemies, underrating and suspecting each other.
But, strange as it may appear, the singularity of this
destiny has preserved through every change the great char-
acteristics of the Milesian blood, which, although in some
respects chilled or changed by slavery, is yet gushing from
the heart. Their hatred of control has preserved the love
of learning, because learning was denied; and persecution
has established Catholicism more firmly in the hearts of
the people, than it would probably have been fixed, in an
uninterrupted course of national prosperity. Every people
west of the Alps have, at some time or other, yielded up
their old faith and its imposing forms — but Ireland has only
clung to them more fondly in the lapse of centuries. The
sons of her rightful princes entered the sanctuary, and the
expounders of Christian doctrine became also the hope of
the bondsman. For nearly two centuries, the Catholic
clergy were the only educated portion of the aboriginal
population ; and from this cause they were obliged to be

201

the advocates and defenders of the people — the councillors
and conveyancers, as well as the teachers, of the masses.
The clergy became the conservers of antiquity*, the nar-
rators of history, and the preservers of a national spirit.
In the gloomy glen, or in the cavern's darkness, haranguing
their faithful flocks, it was impossible for them to avoid
mentioning the laws which had driven them thither, and
the transition thence was natural, to the men who made
them. The upstart antiquity of the Saxon race — their
treachery, injustice, and inferiority to those whom they
oppressed, were kept constantly before the down-trodden
masses ; and thus was perpetuated that sturdy sense of
ancestral dignity, which is always the companion of your
true Irishman. Young patriots loved and cherished this
useful vanity, feeding it with declamation, and celebrating
it in fiery strains of never-dying song. At length, pro-
scription wearied of its ineffectual labors, the penal laws
were abolished, and the heart of Ireland swelled out to its
original greatness. It has since voluntarily cast out much
of the folly of a false pride, and in its place now wisely
cultivates a knowledge of the defects of native character,
with a view to their remedy.

It would be rash to assert, dogmatically, that the Irish of
future times will be a great people ; but we may say with
certainty, that few countries ever had a fairer field, to win
for themselves solid and legitimate greatness. In politics,
they have produced the most remarkable statesman of the
day ; in morals, they possess the most wonderfully apostolic
man ; and in education, they are fast tracking up the steps
of the best taught communities. It is true that in Austria
and Prussia there are wider and deeper systems of study ;
but these are entirely governmental, and have not origi-
nated with the people. The peculiar genius of a nation
ought to be represented in its system of culture ; for if the
system harmonizes not with that genius, it becomes a clog
around its neck, rather than a beacon to light it onward.
The Irish system, now rapidly tending to an established
existence, will be of the people — all the better, insomuch
that instead of being compulsory, it is formed by the same
hands which are to use it. In this view its practicability
is vastly superior to the schemes of the continental cab-
inets.

But there is a higher cause for hope, than all the work-

202

ings of the national spirit convey, although these certainly
are far from dubious or equivocal. It is the hope we all
have (or should have) in the merciful guardianship of a
just and retributive Providence — Him, of whom it is writ-
ten that a sparrow fails not to the earth, unknown to His
all-pervading intelligence. To Him, on behalf of the
oppressed, the freeman should always look — for the eman-
cipation unsanctioned in heaven is valueless. We have
many causes to look there on behalf of Ireland. The birth-
land of five hundred canonized saints, and many thousands
of beatified martyrs, cannot surely, in His justice, be left
longer as the footstool of a hereditary despotism. The
land from which the patrons of Scotland and Northumber-
land, of Germany and Gaul, swarmed forth, as St. Bernard
says, "in an inundation" of pious zeal, is not to continue
forever a nursery of paupers, partizans, and mercenary
soldiers. The vessel in which such goodly forms were
moulded of old, has not been doomed — Oh ! never can be
doomed — to the shaping of hideous shapes, of slaves who
go forth to make slaves, and maniacs who execute the laws
of those who manacle them. Nations shall confess the
justice of God, and kings tremble before his judgments.
"Heaven and earth shall pass away," but his word never!
We see the evidences of this propitious Providence in
the men now employed to raise up the people of Ireland,
as well as in the improved temper of the people themselves.
Their ancestors of old, revelling in plenty, and indulging in
unattacked freedom, grafted on their hereditary Milesian
impetuosity, a wilder and more hazardous daring. To
this they joined an unsuspicious disposition, pampered by
an overweening sense of their political security and mili-
tary invincibility, which in reality " sold the pass " upon
them, and gave their patrimony to the invader. But their
sons, so long as they retained lands and gold, scorned to
degenerate from the olden rule ; it was only confiscation
which could teach prudence, and beggary which introduced
frugality. Two generations lay paralyzed in each of those
extensive changes, which, under Elizabeth, James, Crom-
w^ell, and William, gave a new race of proprietors to the
soil. Had the present and wisest attempt at national eleva-
tion been the work of impulse, or the promptings of a
temporary resolution, we might well distrust it; for the
swiftest steed is often the first to give out, and the wave

203

which throws itself highest on the beach, returns most
quickly to the bowels of the ocean. Such, however, is not
the nature of the present Irish agitation, that, like a natural
.crop in a wholesome soil, has appeared faintly at first, but,
overcoming the inclemency of many obstacles, flowers, and
at last brings forth the long-expected fruit for general
nourishment and preservation. The Providence which has
given Ireland an O'Connell in political, and a Mathew in
moral reformation, has also given her the heart to receive,
and the understanding to follow the teachings of these great
men. Without this innate virtue, and a strong native
sense of duty, all preachings of peace and charity and for-
giveness would be thrown away, and Father Mathew's
reputation would still be limited to the congregation of
Blackamoors Lane, and O'Connell would have been little
more than " a stout special pleader." That consciousness
of deserving better times, and hilarity of temper which dis-
tinguishes the people — their fervent Catholic enthusiasm,
and lofty appreciation of the value of letters, are materials
out of which sincere and industrious advocates can easily
effect many salutary improvements. No country that en-
dured slavery so long, has emerged from it less deteriorated
by the contact. The sons of the Italian republics are wan-
derers on the earth, pedlars of bad music and retailers of
comfits ; the posterity of Greece lie most complacently
beneath the heel of the Moslem, although their fathers
were freemen before the Hegira, while yet Arabia slum-
bered in a state of tinselled barbarism.

The situation of Ireland, and her natural advantages,
should Ions: since have made her eminent amonsfst nations.
An island compact and well watered, with as many harbors
as there are leagues in her circumference ; placed to the
west of all Europe — the last Atlantic landmark of the old
world, and the first European beacon for the new — she has
been regarded by commerce as a mere Eddystone, useful
when a wide berth is given her. Yet, what a mistake is
here. Her northern coast — that wonderful museum of
geology — instead of attracting attention only by its curiosi-
ties, should have invaded the ocean with moving monuments
of art, more wonderful than the eternal pillars planted by
giant hands, in defiance of the angry North Sea. Her
southern shore tempts the approach of Mediterranean com-
merce, while her vast western havens ought to be covered

204

with the fleets of the new world. Through the means of
Ireland, a revolution will some day be effected in British
commerce ; and if the merchants of Liverpool and Bristol
will not take time by the forelock, they may behold a time
when the warehouses of Galway shall be large enough to
oblige few ships to brave the dangers of Channel navigation.
Dr. Kane, in his recent admirable work, has demon-
strated, with the most beautiful accuracy, the immense fund
of mineral wealth which lies unemployed beneath the feet
of the idle and half-starving peasantry. This laborious
author has developed the extent of vast coal-fields, hitherto
but little known, the wealth of which will be inexhaustible
when Newcastle and Whitehaven are no longer productive.
He has divided these fields into provincial classes, of which
one is in Leinster, two in Munster, three in Ulster, and one
in Connaught. The first occupies the greater portion of
the county of Kilkenny, the Queen's County, and part of
Carlow, and is bounded by the rivers Barrow and Nore.
" This district," says the Doctor, " forms a great mineral
basin ; its strata consequently incline from the edge toward
the centre — the undermost appear on the outer edge, and
the uppermost in the interior of the district." ^ ^ =^
" Mr. Griffith estimates the area occupied by this coal at
5000 acres, (Irish,) and its specific gravity is 1.591 ; the
total quantity of pure solid coal may be calculated at rather
more than sixty-three millions of tons." The Tipperary
coal-field is about twenty miles in length by six in breadth;
yet the quantity of coal at present raised from it does not
exceed fifty thousand tons per annum. The great Munster
" formation " is the most extensive coal-bed in the British
islands. It occupies much of the counties of Clare, Kerry,
Limerick, and Cork. Mr. Griffith has discovered in it six
different layers ; " three of the most valuable, locally known
as the bulk-vein, the rack-vein, and the sweet-vein, have
been recognized at the opposite sides of the undulations."
Yet this vast source of wealth is almost untouched. The
coal formations of Ulster, in Tyrone and Antrim, are not
very extensive ; in the former, however, there are between
seven and eight thousand acres, comprising the Coal Island
and Anahone districts. The hills around Lough Allen
encompass the Connaught coal fields, which extend through
Roscommon, Sligo, Leitrim, and a portion of Cavan, or

205

about sixteen miles in each direction. This also has been
to the present but little worked.

Such is the fuel power lying inactive in Ireland. Of
her immense water power, it has been acknowledged that
it could turn all the machinery of Britain and France.
There is no other European country so well watered ; an
innumerable variety of streams dash down her declivities,
and float onward to the ocean, like the unemployed hours
of a sluggard, never to return. O, Nature ! how thy boons
are squandered upon slaves ! What profits it to Irishmen
that they live in a land flowing with milk and honey, when
their hands are chained, and their limbs fettered ? Of what
avail are all the benefactions of a good Providence, when
tyrant laws have reversed the order of nature, and reared
up beggary in the very nursery of abundance ? But the
day of the destroyer is fading into twilight, and the sun of
a new age is smiling serenely on " the plains and rivers of
the land."

I have cast this hasty glance upon the moral, intellectual
and physical capabilities of Ireland, for building up a name
and nationality, because it is always an agreeable task to
show that men are capable of better things than most phi-
losophers suspect them of; but it is peculiarly so to believe
that the slave is to have his turn of fortune, honor, enlight-
enment, and independence. It is delightful to contemplate
the possibility of Ireland's ascension — to think that, when
England's star shall pale, and her " felon flag" be furled
forever, her long- oppressed sister-isle shall assume a glorious
destiny, and practise toward her prostrate oppressor, "the
noble vengeance of forgiveness."

Ireland has a deep, abiding faith; vast natural wealth ;•
increasing intelligence ; a firm sobriety, and a good share
of political education. If she be but true to herself, no
country ever shaped out a nobler futurity than she can. As
the people are to themselves, so shall their posterity be to
the world. The inheritance of liberty and eminence is
before them, and over its portal, like the door of the enchanted
chamber, it is written — " Be bold ! be bold I but be not too
bold ! "

18

CONTENTS

Introduction,

CHAPTER ONE.

The Family of Mr. O'Connell. — His Birth and Education, collegiate
and legal, . 7

CHAPTEE TWO.

The Act of Union. — O'Connell's Opposition to that Measure. — Robert
Emmett — Review of the Catholic Question in Ireland. — Rt. Rev.
Dr. Milner — Commencement of the Veto Controversy. — Suppression
of the Catholic Committee, 14

CHAPTER THREE.

The Catholic Question continued. — The Veto Controversy in Eng-
land.— Richard Lalor Shiel. — Rome and the Veto. — Father Hayes.
— His Career and Character. — His Death, .... 23

CHAPTER FOUR.

Mr. O'Connell's Personal Career. — Duel with D'Esterre. — Challenge
from Sir Robert Peel. — Kerry Election. — Endeavor to establish a
National Party irrespective of Creed. — George the Fourth visits Ire-
land.— Formation of the Catholic Association, . 32

CHAPTER FIVE.

Sketches of eminent Writers on the Catholic Question. — Right Rev.
Dr. Doyle. — Thomas Furlong. — " Honest Jack Lawless." — Thomas
Moore 38

CHAPTER SIX.

The Catholic Question in foreign Countries.— America. — Thomas Addis
Emmet. — France. — Germany. — British Dependencies. — Growth of
the Association. — English Protestant Liberality. — Rev. Sidney
Smith, 65

CHAPTER SEVEN.

General Election, of 1826. — The Association resolves to contest
Waterford, Louth, and Monaghan. — The Result. — Triumphs of
the Catholics in England. — Publications. — The Press. — Death
of Edward Hay, Esq. — WiUam Cobbett. — Controversy of the
"Wings," 83

208

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. — O'Connell is nominated
for the Representation of Clare — The first Clare Election. — Mr.
Steel. — 0' Gorman Mahon and Father Maguire. — Passage of the
Emancipation Act. — O'Connell in St. Stephens. — He is refused a
seat under the new Act, . . . , . . 95

CHAPTER NINE.

O'Connell is reelected for Clare. — View of the State of Europe. —
Various successes of Revolutionary Efforts. — Influence of the
Emancipation upon the Reform of Parliament. — Agitation. — Mo-
tion for a Repeal of the Union. — Death of George the Fourth. — His
Reign, and its History. — The new Irish Representatives. — Sir
Michael O'Loghlen, 125

CHAPTER TEN.

Irish Transactions, from 1830 to '34.— The Reform Bill.— The Aboli-
tion of Tithes demanded. — The Coercion Bill. — Mr. Wyse and
National Education. — Dr. Doyle and the Poor-Laws. — Continuation
of the Repeal Agitation. — Motion in Parliament, . . . 138

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Accession of the Melbourne Ministry. — The Five Years' Truce with
England. — Orangeism. — The Fruitlessness of Peace. — Revival of
Agitation. — Just Judgment of the Whigs, .... 160

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Anecdotes of the Personal Career of Mr. O'Connell. — Various opin-
ions of his Public Character. — View of his Genius and its Influence.
— Conclusion, 182

A Glance at the Future Destiny of Ireland, . . , 196

1

i j

! 1

J

\

t

■^ j

1

m

1
1

i

1

1

1

■

^:

i

»f

^

d J$^ Oli

^<:C»^ VI vlVJ "^'*^ «i-

'eji" '»\n! ^VJ»

Ala

'>t^

m

'.^

^■rik.r^^

i